Memories
by Lady Kino
Summary: Julie never wanted to be an Animorph.  But then again, she never really had much of a choice.  And somehow, ever since that night she found out Jake could turn into a falcon, nothing had gone right.  Rating for language, violence.
1. Chapter One

Memories

Chapter One

My name is Julianne. I wish I could tell you my last name. I wish I could remember my last name. The truth is I can't remember anything. Because of this creature, this Ellimist, I know what happened. I know what I thought and said and did. I guess that's pretty close to remembering. I guess he thinks its close enough.

Everything started in the public library. The Ellimist was good enough, or felt guilty enough, to show me the rest of my life, but this story really begins in the library. I was doing a research paper for school. Unfortunately, everyone else seemed to have picked the same topic; the book I wanted was gone.

"God damnit," I muttered, kicking the bookshelf lightly and scowling at the remaining books.

"Temperamental, aren't we?"

I jumped slightly at the sound of Tom's voice and blushed at the sound of his laugh. He had such a nice laugh. I had to take a few deep breaths before I could get up the nerve to turn and face him.

"What do you want, Tom?" I asked, hoping my blush wasn't showing. After four years of living next to the Berensons, I still hadn't admitted to my crush on Tom. Though, I was sure he knew about it. How could he not after the time he caught me watching him undress through his open bedroom window? And was it really my fault our windows faced each other?

"What book are you looking for? Something for that history paper they always make you guys do?"

I checked the slip of paper in my hand. "Um... _The Reluctant Crusade_ by James Matray."

Tom grinned and shrugged. "Never heard of it. You're doing the Korean War, right?"

"Everyone's doing the Korean War. It's a history paper about the Korean War, so all the books about the Korean War are gone now."

He laughed again. "Well come over tonight. Jake's doing the same paper and he brought home a bunch of history books. You two could share."

"Sure. I'll do that."

Tom gave me one last grin before he turned and left.

* * *

­­­­­­­­I wish I knew what I was feeling at that time. I wish I could remember all the things going on inside me when I agreed to go to Tom's house. The Ellimist showed me my memories. I could hear the words we spoke and the thoughts I thought, but that's not enough to know everything. After all, my mind was telling me not to go, that I'd only obsess over Tom and never get any work done and probably make a fool out of myself. My mind was saying 'no' and my mouth said 'yes' and I simply can't remember why.

* * *

I went over after dinner. Mom, a local RN, had to work extra, so we ate late and it was dark by the time I crossed the lawn to Tom's house. Mr. Berenson answered the door and invited me in.

"Hey, Julie. What can we do for you tonight?"

"I came to see Jake. Is he here?"

"No, he went to go visit Marco. He should be back soon, though."

"Okay, I'll just wait for him."

I headed for the stairs to go wait in Jake's room. Jake may not have been as close to me as he was to Marco, but we were friends and neighbors. We'd been in and out of each other's rooms since I moved in four years ago. It was a perfectly normal thing to do and no one commented on it.

Even Tom thought it was normal. He simply grinned at me as I passed him on the stairs, struggling to smile without looking like a dork.

Jake's room was a mess, but he had a stack of books on his desk. I wandered over and started flipping through them, deciding on what I would ask to borrow once he showed up. While looking through _Avoiding the Apocalypse_ a breeze blew through the open window, making me shiver. Why did he have an open window anyway? I leaned over the desk to close the window when it happened.

A bird-of-prey landed in the grass of the backyard. Birds like that were rare in residential neighborhoods, and they almost never landed on the ground. So I stopped to watch it. And as I watched it, it started to grow. It grew and grew until it was about the size of a small child.

I leaned over the desk to get a better look, nearly crawling on top of it. The backyard was dark and the bird had landed in shadows. I must have been frightened. My breath came in short gasps. Little beads of sweat formed on a brow knitted with confusion. My eyes strained to see what was going on.

Then, suddenly, the feathers disappeared. Just vanished, leaving pink skin covering a disgustingly contorted body that continued to grow and grow. I bit my tongue to keep from screaming and continued to watch with a kind of horrified fascination. The kind that makes people slow down on a highway to look at a wreck. It was disgusting, nightmarish, but I kept watching. Until the head turned and looked straight at me. A head that was suddenly more human than bird.

I pushed away from the desk so violently that I fell over backward. Lying on the floor, I squeezed my eyes shut, still biting my tongue. I tried not to acknowledge what I'd seen, tried not to think about, but the images were burned into my mind. Inescapable. A hawk, turning into a human. But that was impossible. Wasn't it?

A few moments later I heard sounds downstairs. Jake, coming in the back door and talking to his brother. Tom, telling him that I was waiting upstairs.

Was Jake the bird? Did he know what I'd seen? What would he do to me if he knew?

Quickly I picked myself up off the ground and nervously straitened my clothes and hair. I looked about the room, trying to figure out what to do, how to look normal, but I couldn't really think about anything but the sounds of Jake's footsteps coming up the stairs.

When he walked in, I was still standing the middle of the room, looking around nervously.

"Hey," he said casually, leaning against the door. "Did you want something?"

"Um...no, not really. Um...it's just...Tom said you had a bunch of books for the history thingy in school, and...well...I couldn't find any at the library, so..."

I bit my bottom lip to keep from rambling anymore and clasped my hands behind my back, hoping he hadn't seen them shaking. He just looked at me like I was crazy. At the time, I couldn't help but agree.

"Uh...I guess I just wanted know if I could borrow some from you," I finished lamely.

"Sure." He pushed away from the doorframe and walked over the desk, pulling a few books out of the pile and setting them in a different stack. "I checked all these out, but I'm only using these ones, so you can have any of the rest. Just don't forget to return them on time."

He was acting perfectly natural, like there hadn't been a mutant raptor in his back yard just a few moments before.

So maybe...maybe I'd just imagined it. I must have imagined it. Birds don't turn into next-door-neighbors.

My hands were still shaking as I gathered up the books on the desk, not really looking to see if they were the ones I needed.

"Hey, thanks. I'll, um, I'll be sure to take these back on time."

"You want to stay? Mom made a pie last night and we've still got some left."

"No thanks. I've got to go get started on this." I clutched the books close to my chest and avoided looking at his face. Normally I would have accepted, no matter how late. But I couldn't stay in that house.

I risked a glance at his face. His expression was oddly serious and sad, but he covered up quickly and shrugged.

"Well, suit yourself. I'll see you in school tomorrow."

"Yeah. See you."

It took every bit of self-control I had not to run from the room. Once I reached the stairs, I fled as fast as my feet could carry me, hardly even stopping to open the front door.


	2. Chapter Two

Memories

Chapter Two

Jake had turned into a bird in his backyard. Or rather, a bird had turned into Jake. Jake. Nice, calm, level-headed, love to hate him _JAKE_! I had no idea what to do about it. Birds simply DO NOT turn into friendly neighbors with hot brothers.

Ever try to do homework after seeing something like that? Doing homework the night before a test is hard. Doing homework when there's something good playing on the TV downstairs is hard. Doing homework over a holiday break is hard. Doing homework when you know your neighbor is really a bird is damn near impossible. I kept looking over my desk and staring at Tom's window with its carefully lowed blinds. The scene from the backyard played in my head over and over again. The eyes that were the same dark brown color as Jake's turning toward me.

I shook my head to clear it. There was no way I could have seen the color of its eyes, not at that distance. Which meant that my overactive imagination was adding things. I'd probably imagined the whole thing. I tried to laugh at my foolishness, but it came out as more of a strangled cough.

I reached over my desk to close the blinds, determined to concentrate on my homework, but that didn't help. No matter how many times I looked at my math worksheet, the numbers and letters blurred into visions of fierce raptor eyes.

"This is ridiculous," I muttered to myself, pushing away from the desk. _A break_, I thought. _All I need is a break. A break and a snack._

The kitchen was bright and warm and inspired a feeling of coziness and safety. I smiled and hummed to myself as I got out the makings of a PBJ sandwich. Standing in front of the sink, washing a knife for the peanut butter, I saw it. A hawk, resting on the branch of the oak in my backyard.

I think I woke the dead with my scream. Certainly none of the living remained asleep.

Mom and Dad came pelting in from the living room, looking shocked to see their eldest daughter sitting on the kitchen floor, wielding a butter knife at the window.

"Honey, are you okay?" Mom hurried to my side to help me up. "What happened?"

I glanced out the window as I tried to stand on knees that refused to support my weight. The hawk was gone. Probably scared away by my scream.

"Um...there was...a...a roach, um, on the counter there..."

Mom gave me a slightly disbelieving look that made me automatically kick into high gear my only natural talent. I could talk my way out of anything.

"No, really, it was right there." I pointed to the sill under the kitchen window and took the chance to check the tree again. Empty. Empty, but I knew it hadn't been only a few moments before.

"It was huge," I insisted, continuing the lie. "Like this big around." Mom appropriately raised her eyebrows as I made a circle with both hands. "And I was just sitting there, washing the dishes, and it came out and _it looked at me!_"

Mom laughed and I knew she believed me. My fear of vermin was legendary.

"Really, I think we need to call an exterminator or something. What if there's more mutant roaches? Oh, what if they _breed_?"

They laughed at my over-the-top manner, just as they had a million times before. Dad excused himself to the living room to finish watching the news, but Mom stayed in the kitchen while I finished making my sandwich. I didn't really _want_ the sandwich anymore, but with Mom watching me I had no choice. I couldn't exactly tell her that a bird had terrified me and I wanted nothing more than to hide under my covers.

"Are you okay, dear? You seem really tense," she said, leaning against the kitchen wall.

"Oh, yeah. I'm fine, Mom. Why?"

She shrugged. "You just seem tense, that's all."

My mom liked to think she was still my own age; 'mothering' didn't really suit her. So I decided to sacrifice a bit a pride for her sake. And to hide the face that I was most likely going insane.

"Oh, well, you know... went over to Tom's house a while ago."

She grinned again, making me blush. "And?"

"And what? Nothing happened. I just hung out with Jake."

She just continued grinning at me so I stuck my tongue out at her. "Want to make a sandwich with me?"

"No, we're going to watch a movie after the news."

"One of your beloved, low-budget sci-fi movies?"

"Yup. Want to watch with us?"

"No thanks. I think I'll just eat and go to bed."

"Okay. Goodnight."

She gave me a little hug before she left the room, leaving me by myself. I glanced out the window at the empty tree and sighed. "Stupid birds..."

* * *

The next day, a bird followed me to school. I couldn't tell if it was the same bird from the night before, but it was some kind of hawk with reddish feathers. I tried to put it out of my mind, telling myself that I was imagining things. I'd almost convinced myself when Jake's best friend Marco fell into step right behind me about a block from the school and followed me to my classroom. I kept glancing over my shoulder at him, but he didn't seem too interesting in stopping me or talking to me. Once we reached my classroom, I went in and he kept walking.

I laughed at myself the rest of the day. It was nervous laughter, but by the last period, study hall, I'd more or less convinced myself that it was all my imagination. And then Cassie sat at my table.

I couldn't help it. I just stared at her, open-mouthed. The girl Jake's been pining over since he was twelve, sitting at my table. Added to the bird thing and the Marco thing, it was just creepy. Cassie glanced at me and gave me a brief smile and a small nod before settling down to her homework. Was she just trying to get me to stop staring at her, or was there something more to the gesture?

After study hall I snuck out the back door of the school and took a shortcut home. I didn't see anyone following me, but did that really mean anything?

And so it went for the next two days. I saw more of Jake, Marco, and Cassie than usual, but they never tried to talk to me. They were just there. Doing normal things. Things they had every right to do. There weren't always there. Hell, even the bird left me alone sometimes. But I couldn't help the nagging feeling in the back of my mind that someone was stalking me. Not to mention the disturbing nightmares and daydreams about mutating birds with human eyes.

I couldn't prove anything, even to myself. Besides, what was I supposed to do? Call the police to report a stalker bird? So I kept my suspicions to myself and developed a habit of scanning the skies and looking over my shoulder.

After nearly three days of mind games, I was nearly to my breaking point. As I sat at my desk, trying to do homework, jumping at every pigeon in the yard, I thought about what I'd seen a few nights before. What I thought I'd seen.

Was it real or not? Were Jake's friend's following me, or was I being paranoid? Was my neighbor really a bird? The same few questions chased each other around and around in my mind, leaving me without a moment's peace.

"You're just stressed, Julie," I told myself, trying not to wonder what on earth I could possibly be stressing over. "Stress," I repeated. "I'll go to bed, get a good night's sleep, it'll all be better in the morning."

Convinced, I ignored the clock telling me it was only eight and crawled into bed. As soon as I closed my eyes, I saw the bird. Twisting. Growing. Changing. Stretching. The eyes. Human eyes looking straight at me. I twisted and turned and tried and tried to forget, but it didn't help.

"This is so ridiculous," I muttered under my breath as I lay, staring at the ceiling.

There was only one way to put a stop to my mental torment. I had to confront Jake and learn the truth. Even if the truth was that I was loosing my mind. I got out of bed, went downstairs to the kitchen phone and dialed Jake's number. When Tom's voice answered, for the first time in four years, I silently cursed at the sound.

"Berenson residence."

"Hey, Tom. It's Julie. Is Jake there?"

"No, he said he was going out for a while."

"Did he say where to?"

"No, but he took his bike, so he probably went to Cassie's house."

"Cassie?"

"Yeah. Hey, don't tell him we know, okay? He thinks he's being smart or something, keeping it a secret that they're dating."

"Huh? Oh, right. Sure thing."

"Did you want to leave a message?"

"No, I'll just talk to him tomorrow."

My mind was spinning after we hung up. Cassie and Jake were dating. Well, that wasn't really a surprise, but Cassie had been one of the people following me.

Who was Jake that he could get all his friends to spy on me? If they even _were_ spying on me.

Girlfriend or not, I decided I had to find out what was going on. Quickly, I changed out of my pajamas, told my parents I was going out, and left the house.

I spotted the hawk immediately. He was flying in lazy circles a few streets down, just at the edge of my vision. I didn't want the hawk warning Jake, so I stood on my porch for a while, trying to think about how to loose him.

_So now Jake can speak to birds, as well as turn into on?_' I thought, then mentally shrugged. If I was going to be paranoid, might as well go the whole nine yards. Besides, it wouldn't be too hard to loose my stalker. All I had to do was take the bus.

To get to the other side of town, I had to take two buses, making the change at a covered transit station. I didn't see any unusual wildlife as I boarded the second bus, careful to stay out of view from the sky, so I felt pretty confidant that I'd lost whatever was tailing me.

Cassie's dad answered the door and told me Cassie was working in the barn. I guess strangers showing up and asking to talk to his daughter didn't bother the man, because he didn't ask who I was. I walked around the house to the barn and hesitated outside the open door. What were they doing alone in the barn, and did I really want to risk walking in on them?

"We can't let the Yeerks get away with this. They'll be infesting people by the hundreds!"

The voice didn't belong to Jake or Cassie.

"Okay, so what do you suggest we do about it?"

Marco? Yeerks? Infest?

"We take them down, that's what!"

"How do you destroy a hole in the ground? Because that's what this is basically going to be."

(Jake, I lost her.)-

"WHAT THE F?" I screamed.

Dead silence followed my scream. Complete, dead silence.

Then, quite suddenly, Jake stepped out of the barn and stood in front of me. "What are you doing here?"

I heard his question, but I wasn't really interested in answering it. "I...did you hear that? I heard a voice in my head! Oh my god, I'm going crazy. You're turning into birds and talking about infesting people and now I'm hearing voices!"

Jake glanced at the house, probably afraid that my hysterical shouts would disturb someone, and grabbed my arm, dragging me into the barn. Cassie, Marco, his cousin, and a boy I've never seen before all moved to help. Presumably.

"Hey, what are you doing?" I wasn't really in a mood to be cooperative. Or rather, I was too scared to be cooperative. I jerked my arm out of his grip and brought my other hand around to slap him soundly across the face.

No one moved. Marco even paused halfway up from getting off a bale of hay. They watched Jake expectantly, like they were waiting for a command or something. But Jake just stared at me with an imprint of my hand spreading slowly across his face.

And I stood there, in the middle of the floor, with my breathing a bit too heavy and my hand stinging, waiting for something to happen.

Movement in the rafters caught my attention and I risked a glace upward. I caught a glimpse of red-brown feathers.

And screamed again.

This time everyone moved, but Marco got to me first and clamped a hand over my mouth. "Jeez, what are you trying to do, wake the whole neighborhood?"

Jake caught my hands before I could slap him as well. I thrashed against the two boys as they waited for me to calm down, but I was well beyond the point of calming down. Especially with people trying to hold me down. I bit Marco's hand and kicked Jake in the knees, using the confusion to tumble sideways away from them.

My escape didn't help the situation, as I simply landed at the feet of Jake's cousin. She crouched down beside me with a wicked grin. "I wouldn't try that again, if I were you."

Jake's cousin was beautiful and terrifying, but lacked any sort of command. I stared at her in fear and decided fighting wasn't a good idea, but I wasn't about to start playing nice.

"What's going on?" I asked in a shaky voice, deciding to stay on the ground rather than risk standing on unstable legs.

Jake sighed and rubbed one hand over face. "Okay, fine. We'll tell you. Just don't scream anymore, okay? Cassie's parents don't know we're out here."

The other teens in the group looked at him in shock, making it quite clear that they had something important to hide.

I narrowed my eyes suspiciously at him. "What was that voice?"

"What voice?" he asked, giving me a look that might have passed for concern. The others in barn relaxed visibly, trusting that Jake wouldn't give away their secret. They were almost embarrassingly easy to read.

"I heard a voice in my head. And I know I'm not crazy. And you guys were talking about infesting people and last night I swear I saw a mutant bird in your backyard." I couldn't quite say that Jake had turned into a bird. It was too absurd. People hear voices that aren't there all the time and live mostly normal lives. "Mutant bird?" he asked with amusement. But not before his face gave the slightest twitch.

"Yes, Jake, mutant bird."

"And...what was it, infesting people?"

"Infesting, damnit! INFESTING!"

The cousin toed me. "Stop yelling."

I ignored her and settled more comfortably on my knees, waiting for Jake's answer. I watched as his eyes darted from one friend to another as he tried to make a believable lie. Marco opened his mouth to help with yet another bad joke and I suddenly decided I didn't want to hear their story. I pushed up and off the floor and bolted for the door, the others just a beat behind me.

I'll never know why I did it. Common sense was telling me to stay in the barn and wheedle the truth from them, but humans are notorious for ignoring common sense. And in the movie of my life that the Ellimist showed me, I couldn't remember what my heart and emotions were telling me. Maybe I was scared. Maybe I was angry. Maybe I was both. Or maybe I didn't know it even then.

Whatever the reason, I ran from the barn into the early night.

"Julie, wait!" Jake almost caught up with me when Cassie yelled.

"Jake!"

Jake turned to look at her as she pointed off toward the forest, but I kept running. When he didn't continue chasing me, I slowed down, turning to look. All five young people were running toward the forest, chasing something. I squinted in the gloom to see what it was. A raccoon with a small, sky-blue box in its teeth.

"Catch it!" Jake screamed, apparently forgetting me for the moment. Everyone chased the raccoon into the trees. The bird from the barn launched out from the open window, beating frantically to get altitude in the dead air.

Why were they chasing a raccoon? I wondered. Then it occurred to me that they were chasing the box, not the raccoon. And the box probably had something to do with stalker-birds and mutating neighbors.

I could have left. Just like I could have stayed in the barn or never gone to Tom's house. I guess, out there in the cold night air and away from the others, I was calm enough to remember the reason I'd gone there in the first place.

I turned on my heel and ran after the terrified raccoon with the rest of them.

I plunged into the trees, following the sounds that the others made more than anything I could see in the dark. Somehow they seemed to know where the raccoon was, even though they couldn't quite catch up with it. I wondered briefly why Jake didn't just have the bird, who I was sure was under his orders, catch the rodent. But one glance upward answered that. The hawk was struggling in the dead, cold air, barley able to stay high enough to see through the trees.

So we chased for what seemed like hours, but which was really only about fifteen minutes. We crossed the highway at some point, racing along the concrete, when the hawk finally managed to get high enough to make a dive at the creature, catching the fur at the back of his neck.

"Hold him there, Tobias," Jake yelled.

Cassie caught up to the two creatures first, wrestling the box from the raccoon and then tending to the frightened creature while it tried to bite her hands.

Jake took the box from her and then turned to face me as I came running up behind him, out of breath.

"Okay, Jake, what's going on? And try not to give me any bull shit."

Jake might have tried to answer me truthfully, but a noise in the forest made everyone freeze. The noise of people crashing through the trees, looking for something.

"I saw it go down over here," someone shouted in the distance.

Everyone by the side of the road tensed up and I noticed the strange boy was gone.

"What do we do when we find it?" The voices were far off, but still clear.

"It's just a bird. What's it going to do, attack us?"

"You won't be laughing if you loose an eye. Just shoot and don't stop to ask questions."

"Shoot?" I whispered, looking nervously at Jake, but he ignored me.

"Don't run," he ordered in a low voice. "Stay close to the trees and head up the road that way." He pointed in the direction away from Cassie's farm and we all moved out, following his instructions.

We didn't get very far before the men we'd heard in the forest broke the tree line and found the raccoon Cassie had been forced to leave behind. We hugged closer to the trees, getting as far into the forest as we could without running through the noisy undergrowth, but a beam from a flashlight fell over Marco just the same.

"Hey, over here!" one of the men yelled.

We didn't need an order from Jake to do it. We all broke out into a run, moving into the forest.

"Split up," Jake commanded, but I didn't listen to him. I stayed right by his side, afraid to be running on my own. In the distance, I heard gunshots that made me cry in fright.

"Come on, Julie," Jake urged. "Just keep running." He grabbed my arm and tried to drag me along behind him, but I simply couldn't keep up.

The crashing behind us grew louder as our pursuers drew closer. I started to panic, making it even harder to breathe while running. Jake stayed by my side, always urging me on, until the beam of a flashlight fell on us. They opened fire and Jake pulled me out of the light, but not before a spray of shrapnel caught me in the leg.

I managed to run a few more feet before my injury caught up with me and I fell, dragging Jake down with me. I sat there for a few precious seconds, staring at the blood pouring from the mess of my thigh before Jake grabbed my hands and used them to try and stem the flow. The hawk landed in a tree overhead. If I'd had the presence of mind to watch his face at the time, I would have seen the way he looked at the hawk, as if they were talking. But I could only look from my wounded leg to the dark forest where the sounds of the shooters came from.

"Julie," Jake hissed in my ear to get my attention. "Come this way."

He dragged me around to the other side of the tree where two roots formed a shallow hollow between each other. I used one hand to crawl and the other to cover the bullet hole, relying mostly on Jake to help me. He shoved me into the hollow and followed, so that I was pressed between his body and the trunk of the tree.

I tried to press myself as far back into our meager hiding place as I could, clutching my leg, while Jake looked from me to the hawk to the blue box he still held and the sounds of the searchers drew closer and closer.


	3. Chapter Three

Memories

Chapter Three

Jake did the only thing he could to save us. To save me. He gave me the blue box. He told me how to acquire the hawk named Tobias and turn into a bird to escape.

I'm sure I was afraid. I would've been an idiot not to be. Turning into a bird, watching Jake loose half his tail feathers to a shotgun, flying back to the barn. Who wouldn't have been scared witless? But I can't remember the fear. I've felt fear many times since that day I woke up alone, so I can imagine how it must have felt. I can imagine a sense of doom worming away inside me, slowly eating away at everything. I can imagine the blind terror that kept my mind from functioning in any logical way. I can imagine it, but I can't remember it. And fear was such a driving emotion in those days. It had to be. Nothing else was strong enough to keep us going.

* * *

"I didn't have a choice," Jake sighed, rubbing his hand through his hair. "We were trapped. Julie couldn't run, even if they hadn't been right behind us."

"And that's another thing," Marco ranted, continuing a tirade that he'd been keeping since Jake and I flew into the barn nearly twenty minutes earlier. "Who were those guys? I'm mean, have the Yeerks started just sending out random search and destroy parties? They had SHOTGUNS!"

"Really? I hadn't noticed."

Marco scoffed. "Oh, fine time for you develop a sense of humor, Jake."

Cassie chose that moment to cut in with her soft, calming voice. "What do we do now?"

Everyone looked over to the corner where I sat, shivering under a blanket and trying to hide my nakedness. By necessity, my clothes were under a tree in the forest. My mind was still in shock, still trying to process what had happened, not realizing that they were talking about me.

Jake crouched next to me and touched my shoulder lightly, jerking me out of my dazed state. I scooted away from him and clutched the blanket closer to me.

"What do you want?"

"We need to know what we're going to do now, and that's a decision you need to be a part of."

I looked from one face to the next, trying to understand what they were asking of me. "I…wha-"  
"Now, hold on Jake." Marco pulled on Jake's shoulder, making him turn away from me and face the group. "Are you talking about letting her join?" He leaned in closer and lowered his voice, but didn't quite whisper. Like he was talking about something he wanted to avoid, not something he wanted to keep secret. "Remember David?"

Jake's eyes flashed for a moment, in anger or fear I couldn't tell. "I remember. But Julie isn't David and it's a bit late to just leave her out of it."

"Leave-" I tried to raise my voice in protest, but it cracked and I had to swallow while they watched me. "Leave me out of what?" I asked quietly.

Jake looked at the others, who either nodded or avoided his gaze. And then he told me.

* * *

We talked late into the night. It was past midnight when I returned to home. I landed on my back porch and waited until I saw Jake, who was de-morphing in his own backyard, go in though his backdoor. While I appreciated his offer to guide me home in bird morph, I had to be careful until Cassie had a chance to teach me to morph clothes. Grateful that my parents were already asleep, I quietly crept through the house, dressed in pajamas, and crawled into bed. I was so exhausted, physically, mentally, and emotionally, that I fell asleep and didn't move until noon the next day.

"Good morning," Mom called cheerfully from the table as I stumbled into the kitchen.

I grunted in response and fell against the fridge door, leaning my head against the cool metal surface.

"Are you okay, honey?"

"Quiet. I'm eating by osmosis."

"Well, if you ever get bored with that there's some lunch leftovers for you in the fridge."

I considered moving to get the food, then decided it took too much effort and grunted instead.

"Oh, and Jake called about an hour ago."

Memories from the previous night flooded my mind and I had to wait a few moments until I was sure I could talk in a steady voice. "What did he say?"

"Not much. Just to call him once you wake up. Something about a history paper."

"Oh. Right." The damn history paper. Just one more thing to worry about on top of aliens taking over the planet, one neighbor at a time. Not to mention friends who turn into animals and crushes who aren't fully human. "Yeah. I'll call him after I eat."

She didn't say anything as I reheated and ate the covered bowl of spaghetti. Nor did she mention the phone call as I rinsed my dishes and wandered into the living room to watch TV. I kept glancing over at the phone mounted on the kitchen wall, wondering if it would ring. Wondering what would happen if I called Jake. Wondering what would happen if I didn't call Jake. Would he call again? Would he come over? What did he want to say? More about last night? Or would he tell me to forget the whole thing? Or that it was all just a sick joke?

Or maybe he just wanted to talk about school. Maybe it never happened. Maybe...I was drunk. The whole thing was a dream. Anything.

I sat on the couch, trying to find a sane explanation, or maybe just a more pleasant one, when the phone rang, scaring me witless and making me jump about three feet in the air. Mom answered it.

"Julie! It's for you."

"Is it Jake?"

"Yup."

I heaved a sigh and got off the couch to take the phone. "Yeah?"

"Hey, Julie. Your mom told me she would tell you to call me."

"She did. I just didn't feel like it."

"Um...oh."

I sighed again. "Look, sorry. Didn't really mean to snap at you."

"S'okay."

"So, um, about last night-"

"Yeah, I just wanted to ask if I could come over. You took a book I need when you came over here the other day. Besides, you're so good at history, I thought you might be able to help me."

"History paper? You want to talk about a history paper? When we just-"

"Is your mom home?"

I stopped short, taking note of my surroundings for the first time. Mom was still seated at the table, looking at me suspiciously. "Um...yeah...that's fine. You can come over."

"Great. I'll be there in a minute."

I hung up the phone, beet red. Partly from how my side of the conversation sounded to my mother, and partly from the fact that I'd nearly compromised the secret so soon after learning it. She didn't ask for an explanation and I didn't offer one; I just returned to the living room to wait for Jake.

As soon as I let him in, we headed upstairs to my room. I dropped into my desk chair and looked at him expectantly. "Well? Or did you really come for the history paper?"

"Are Alex and Andi here?"

I gave him a patronizing look. Alexander and Andrea, my twin younger siblings, were well known for their curiosity, but his paranoia was starting to get annoying. "No, they're still at that space camp for another few days. And Dad went to the store and Mom's in the kitchen, so unless you think someone planted a bug in my room, you can say whatever you like."

"I'm just trying to be careful."

"So what did you want?"

He sat on the edge of my bed and looked at me with real concern that made me feel guilty. "I just wanted to see how you're doing. See if you have any questions about...last night."

Questions? I had a million questions. But only one that would make any difference. "What am I supposed to do?"

"Huh?"

"You guys told me about the Yeerks and how you're fighting them and all that, but no one talked about me. What happens to me now? Do I just go on my merry way and what not?"

Jake sighed and rubbed the back of his neck with one hand. "Well, it's really up to you. If that's what you want, you can do that."

His statement clearly had a second part so I waited expectantly for him to finish. "Or?" I prompted.

"Or...you can fight, too."

I stared at him, wide-eyed. The idea wasn't exactly new to me, just something I'd been avoiding. To hear him say it out loud made it concrete. Made it real.

Made it a responsibility.

"Look, you don't have to. We can't ask you to risk your life for anything. But if you wanted, we need all the help we can get."

"But I don't have to?"

"No, you don't have to."

I could hear the disappointment in his voice as he said it. Disappointment and just a bit of hope.

I glared at him in fury. "Shit, Jake, how can you say that? 'We need your help to save the planet, oh, but you can just sit on your keester and watch us all risk our lives if you want. That's fine.' Yeah, right, what kind of choice is that?"

He shrugged and avoided looking at me. "It's your choice."

I put one elbow on the desk and propped my chin on one palm. "Well, both options suck."

"I know."

We sat for a while, the silence stretching between us. I kept hoping he might suddenly speak up, give me a third option, a way out. But he just sat on my bed, staring at the floor.

"Who's David?" I finally asked when I realized he wasn't going to speak up.

He waited a long time before answering. "He was a kid who found out about us once. They took his family before we could do anything about it and so he joined us. Only...it didn't really work out."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning he couldn't handle it and tried to betray us."

I stared at my desk, trying to process it all and seething with resentment at my situation. "Well, no wonder Marco didn't want to include me. Anything else you neglected to mention?"

Jake gave me a look that reminded me of a father scolding a temper-throwing four-year-old. "There's a lot we didn't tell you. Some things are need to know, and as of yet, you don't need to know them."

"Right, just tell me enough to get me to join and leave the rest for later."

"Are you saying we should have told you everything up front?"

"Yeah. I'm rather fond of the truth."

"Except when you're the one telling it."

I opened my mouth, ready to argue back, but couldn't think of a single thing to say. The insult stung more than it should have.

Jake made an aggravated noise and rubbed the back of his neck again. "I'm sorry, Julie, I shouldn't have said that."

I slouched in my chair and traced the wood-grain patterns on my desk with one finger, refusing to look at him. "Why are you so desperate for me to join when you don't even trust me?"

"I do trust you." He waited for me to reply, then pressed on when I didn't. "I've known you four years, Julie. I know you're a good, loyal friend and I know you're smart. I trust you to make the right choice, whichever choice that might be." He smirked slightly. "And I _know_ you can keep a secret."

I glanced at him from the corner of my eye, wondering if he was talking about his years-long crush on Cassie, or the time I helped him play hooky from school, or one of the many other times I'd kept my lips sealed when I didn't have to. Not that it really mattered. I'd never consciously give away this secret.

"No one's going to find out about you from me. I promise."

"That's good enough for me." He gave a slow smile and stood. "Look, you don't have to decide anything right now. Think on it for a couple of days."

I gave him a frightened look. "A couple of days?"

"Yeah. We can afford to take a break for the weekend, so take your time. Think it out."

"Okay, but what I do in the meantime?"

He shrugged. "I don't know. It's the weekend. Do whatever you want. Watch TV. Read something. Write more of that book you think no one knows about."

I blushed and glared at him. "How'd you know about that?"

"You write bits of it the margins of your notes."

My blushed deepened and he laughed softly as he left the room, reminding me of Tom. I sent a host of ill-wishes after him. He'd never be copying my notes again.

I leaned back in my chair with a sigh and stared at my computer. Write? Writing was a great way to work out my emotions. Everything becomes clearer when someone else is doing it and you can look on from a distance.

But I didn't want to write. I didn't want to be objective, and I didn't want to work things out. In fact, I wanted to blot out the memory of the whole past week. I wanted to do something normal. Something mind-numbingly simple and normal.

I wanted to go shopping.

* * *

Paul was ecstatic to get my call and I was only too happy to meet her at the mall's bookstore. Paul was my very best friend and loved to rant about everything, starting with her name, Pauline, and going all the way down through politics to dating to books and somehow, always, back to her name.

"Julie!" she called, rushing over from the new releases section.

I opened my arms wide and we hugged and squealed in the middle of the store like the stereotypical teenage girls we were.

"So how have you been?" she asked when the public display was over.

"Fine," I answered, giving the standard response and not thinking about how completely false the statement was. "How's private school treating you? I never see you anymore now that we're not in class."

Paul sighed heavily and rolled her eyes. "It's _horrible_," she whined.

I laughed and led her away from the front door and toward the café. "Well, how 'bout you buy me a tea and tell me all about it?"

"Whatever."

She bought drinks for both of us and we settled at one of the small tables. After a few moments of contented sipping, she started the expectant rant.

"Well, first of all, all of my teachers call me 'Miss Pauline.' How whacked is that? 'Miss Pauline?' It screams 'pampered airhead.' Oh, but don't try and tell them that. They all think it's 'cute.'"

I laughed silently and motioned for her to continue.

"And the other students? I swear, one day I'm going to kill one of these wanna-be rich kids and it won't be my fault. We have one who claims she's a 'Goth cheerleader.'"

Paul continued her rant for a solid half-hour, during which we both laughed more than I had in weeks, until the perfect little moment was utterly ruined for me. Glancing over Paul's shoulder, I saw Marco wander in the front door, acting as if everything were perfectly normal.

At least he knew enough not to even glance at me before meandering further into the store.

"Hold on a moment, Paul. I've got to use the little girl's room."

To my credit, I really did go to the restroom before seeking out Marco. He was browsing through the comic section, looking at one of those cheat books for video games.

"What are you doing here?" I demanded, marching strait up to him.

He looked up from his book, a genuine look of surprise on his face. "Reading a book," he replied without missing a beat. "What are you doing here?"

I rolled my eyes and crossed my arms over my chest. "Please. Why are you guys still following me? I thought we'd already established that I'm on your side. More or less."

Marco lost the innocent, surprised look and matched me glare for glare. "No one's following you, Miss Paranoia. I just came to the mall to get a new book."

That made me pause and think. Maybe he was just at the mall. But still, who can blame me for being suspicious?

"Jake didn't tell you to follow me?"

Marco scoffed and put the book back on the shelf. "No. In fact, he made a point of telling us all _not_ to follow you. Said we should give you some space to think, or some bull like that."

"You don't agree with him?"

"No, I don't." He looked strait into my eyes when he talked, something that unnerved me. Not many people bother with the directness of eye-contact. "I think you shouldn't be trusted like that until we know for sure what you're going to do. Call me crazy, but I don't like wild cards when life and death are involved."

I couldn't think of a response for a while. "So what's your opinion? Tail me, or force me out of the group?"

Marco was quiet for a moment, his eyes clouded with something close to regret. "I guess that's the reason I'm not the leader of anything."

"What would you do?" I asked again.

He sighed and looked into my eyes again. It was more than unnerving, to see that kind of honesty. "Ideally, I'd kill you."

"You'd...you'd what?"

"Kill you. Obviously I can't, but it's the only way to make sure you don't compromise the group." He picked out another book and flipped through it quickly. "Look, I'm not harboring homicidal tendencies or anything, and if Jake thinks you'd be good for the group, then I'll welcome you with open arms."

"And a knife behind your back."

He winked. "At least we understand each other." And with that he all but sauntered away, leaving me with far too much to think about.

Paul was waiting impatiently for me back at the table. I did my best to keep a mostly pleasant expression on my face, and must have done a passable job.

"What took you so long?"

"Nothing, I just met someone from school and stopped to say 'hi.'"

She shrugged and launched back into her rant, picking up right where she'd left off, which was somewhere around cruelty to animals. But I wasn't really listening to her. I stared at her and sipped my flavored tea as all the implications of my conversation with Marco sank in.

I was a wild card, not the saving grace of humanity. Jake and the others feared me as much as they needed me, and they knew it. Joining their group would put everyone in danger because of my inexperience. Danger which could get people killed. Worse than killed. On the other hand, six against an entire army? What if joining them turned the tide?

I could join and take a chance between saving the world or dooming it. Or I could do nothing and live with that knowledge for the rest of my life. However long that may be.

"Julie? Julie?"

I snapped out of my contemplative state and focused on Paul again. "Huh? What were you saying?"

"Just that you seem a bit distracted."

Paul was my best friend, more talented and intelligent that anyone I knew. Why wasn't I asking her advice in this? Obviously I couldn't tell her everything, but...

"Okay, um, hypothetically speaking, if you have to choose between maybe saving the world and maybe getting killed or sitting back and letting someone else do it, what would you do?"

"Huh?"

I sighed and rubbed my forehead, trying to think quickly. Hypothetical seemed the best way to do things. "It's, um, well, I was poking around on the internet and someone asked me this question and it's been bugging me for a while."

"Okay, but what's the question."

"Okay, lets say you find out about...um...there's this group of people and they're fighting the evil government or something and, okay, the scenario is stupid. Anyway you've got two choices. You can join this group, but you don't know if it'll help them or hurt them. Or you could just ignore the whole thing and go back to your normal life. What would you do?"

"If I joined them, would I die?"

"Maybe."

"So you might die, but you might save the country, or whatever."

"Right."

"Is that worth dying for?"

"Well, yeah, sure it is when you're just sitting around a bookstore café, but if it really happened?"

"Either you would die for your country or you wouldn't. You're no different here than you would be battling...evil...governments... Can we pick a different scenario?"

"No. Evil governments. Answer the question."

"I'd do it."

I stared at her for a moment, trying to process her answer. "How...how can you answer so fast like that? Without even thinking about it?"

"I did think about it. My...er...country is more important than my life. Hey, can we say I'm saving you?"

"Sure, whatever."

"Okay, then. So, if I had a chance to save you and didn't take it and you died, I'd hate myself. Or if someone else saved you, I still don't think I'd be able to live with myself. So basically, my choices are save you, die, or hate myself for the rest of my life. Of course I'd risk my life for you. Or the country, or whatever."

"Well, that's a comfort. Nice to know you'd do that for me."

"Would you for me?"

I had to think on that for a while. Really think about it. Would I risk everything for my best friend?

Yes. It would scare me shitless, but I'd still do it.

"Of course I would."

And if I would do that for her, why wouldn't I do it for the whole world?

* * *

It took me a while to get up the nerve to call Jake. I spent the rest of the weekend thinking about my decision, trying to get over my fear of what I was doing, but I couldn't. In the end I just had to call him anyway.

"Jake?"

"Hey, Julie. What's up?"

"Not much. Just, that thing we were talking about? Is it still okay if I join you?"

"I guess so. Are you sure you want to come?"

"Yeah. I'm sure."


	4. Chapter Four

Memories

Chapter Four

Jake led the way through the woods, looking back occasionally to make sure I was still following him. I tried to stay a little behind him the whole way to avoid having to talk to him. Meeting my first alien was nerve-wracking enough without someone's bumbling attempts to make me feel better.

"It's just a bit further," he reassured me after about ten minutes of hiking.

"I'm fine," I replied, without really knowing why. I wasn't fine, of course, but what else could I say? At least I'd had enough sense to wear boots instead of sandals that day.

Long before I was ready, we reached our destination. A small field, with two teens waiting under a tree to one side. We crossed the field to get to them, instead of going through the woods. Rachel and Cassie watched our approach, but my eyes were on the red-tailed hawk resting in the tree.

"Where's Marco and Ax?" Jake asked once we were close enough.

Rachel nodded toward the trees. "Ax is in hiding. We didn't want to have him out here and take her by surprise. And Marco hasn't come yet."

Ax. The Andalite. The unknown boy from the barn. I was here to meet the final member of the group and hear the whole story of the Animorphs. I glanced toward the trees, trying to see if I could spot a glimpse of blue fur or tail blades somewhere.

I cleared my throat nervously. "Um, I...I think I'm ready to meet him."

"Are you sure?" Jake asked. When I nodded silently he glanced up at Tobias.

-(I'll go get him.)-

"See if you can find Marco, too while you're up there."

"Or any Controllers with shotguns," Rachel added.

Cassie gave her a disapproving look, although I wasn't quite sure why, before turning to me. "Now, don't be frightened when you meet Ax. He's-"

"I know," I interrupted, too nervous to be polite. "Jake told me what he looks like on the way over here."

Just then, a noise distracted us and drew our attention to the woods. Ax slowly made his way though the trees and into the open and I got my first good look at a real, live alien.

He was everything Jake said he was. Part deer, part human, part scorpion with blue fur, four eyes, and no mouth. Despite the fur and the eyes and all, the thing I couldn't take my eyes off of was the deadly tail arched over his back.

I knew it was impolite, but I couldn't help it. My eyes locked onto that lethal-looking blade and all five of us stood for a few moments in an awkward silence.

"Believe it or not, Ax is more than just a pretty tail."

I blushed furiously and jerked my gaze away from the alien, turning to look at Marco as he approached the group. Tobias glided in over his head and took up his position in the tree again. I tried to glare at Marco, but ended up just feeling foolish.

"Sorry," I said to Ax, carefully looking at his face instead of his tail. "I didn't mean to be rude."

-(It is okay,)- he assured me, sounding only slightly miffed. I marveled at the way a voice in my head could 'sound' annoyed, but tried my best not to show it.

"So," Marco said, cutting into the awkward moment. "Ax, this is Julie. Julie, this is Ax. And now that we all know each other, we can get this little party underway."

Again, the awkward silence filled the clearing. They had gathered together to meet me, to help me get...acclimated to the group. But we had no idea how to proceed. How to say everything that needed to be told.

I decided to jump right in, the way had with Jake. "So, now what?"

"Well, I don't know," Jake admitted. "What do you want to know?"

"No, I mean 'now what?' What do we do? Just sit around and wait for the bad guys to do something?"

Marco raised his eyebrows. "We've got another Xena here."

Rachel rolled her eyes and I surmised that she was 'Xena.' "You say that like it's a bad thing."

Cassie smiled, but Jake just ignored them. "You, uh, don't want to ask any questions?"

"Of course I do, but what's the point? Sounds like there's too much to tell in one sitting. Just don't get annoyed if I interrupt to ask a bunch of questions."

Jake shrugged and launched into an explanation. "Okay, well, the other night in the barn we were talking about some new information Erek had just given us-"

"Erek?"

The others glanced around nervously. They were going to have to reveal all their secrets to me and it was obvious they still didn't fully trust me.

However, the hesitation only lasted a moment. "Erek," Jake explained. "He's an informant. He...uh...he's not human. He's an android and pretends to be a human Controller to get information for us."

That raised more questions than it answered, but I simply nodded for him to continue.

"You know that new movie theatre that's being built a few blocks from the mall?"

"Yeah," I answered slowly, trying to think of where he was going. Ax turned his eye stalks backward to look in the woods and I got distracted.

"Well the company that's building it is run by the Yeerks."

That got my full attention once again. "The Sharing?"

Jake shook his head. "The Sharing is just one of the fronts the Yeerks use, but it's the one they use the most. Anyway, this theatre is going to be run by some entrepreneur."

"Who just happens to be a Controller?"

"Right."

"So what? What would the Yeerks get by opening a theatre? Besides good business; this town's pretty low on entertainment."

Marco laughed, somewhat bitterly. "Yeah, we're just bored to death over here."

I blushed again, realizing how thoughtless my comment had been, but Rachel put a comforting hand on my shoulder. "Just ignore him," she advised. "He hasn't learned the meaning of tack yet."

"The Yeerks," Jake pressed on, giving the other two a stern look, "are planning on connecting the theatre to the Yeerk Pool underneath the mall."

"So they've got a nice, convenient front door now. That sucks, but it doesn't seem like quite the crises you-" I stopped suddenly as everything hit me. "Unless...unless they mean to lure people in there and just force them into being hosts?"

"She's pretty quick," Marco commented.

-(Ax and I went to check it out yesterday, but it's hard to tell anything from the outside. They've been careful to make sure everything looks perfectly normal.)-

"Well they would, wouldn't they? They can't exactly announce their intentions to the neighborhood." I chewed on my lower lip for a while, thinking. The others all had a few days to process the information, but my head was still trying to wrap around the idea of invading aliens, leaving little room for the latest incarnation of the crisis. "So, what, are they even going to show movies, or just have a bunch of Controllers jump out of the screen?"

"What does it matter?" Rachel asked. "We've got to find a way to stop them before it opens."

"Again I ask you, how?" Marco countered. "For all we know, by this point it's just an extension of the Yeerk Pool. And just attacking the theatre isn't going to do anything, it's a building. They'll just fix anything we can do to it and carry on anyway."

"So what do you propose we do?"

"I never said I had a plan, I said we need one before we do anything."

I watched Marco and Rachel argue, trying to follow along, but little thoughts kept interrupting me. Thoughts that were mostly along the lines of 'this is insane!'

Jake finally cut in. "Look, Marco's right. We can't do anything without a plan, and we can't make a plan until we know more. We need to get in there and find out what's going on before we can decide anything."

Rachel looked highly annoyed, but shrugged her consent. The rest of the group just nodded, even Ax.

I raised my hand tentatively, like I was in school again. "Um, how do we do that?"

"Probably in the middle of the night, right before a test, and while they're doing something that could get us killed."

I glanced over at Marco, noticing for the first time how cynical his humor sounded. From the scowl on his face I decided it probably wasn't the best time to bring up the subject.

"Okay," I conceded, "but how do we do that? Do we just walk in like Nancy Drew with a magnifying glass?"

That got me a few surprised looks before Marco and Cassie outright laughed. Even Ax looked amused.

"We're Animorphs," Marco laughed. "We've got a much better way of getting a close up view than a magnifying glass."

I stared at them stupidly for a few moments before it finally struck. "Oh, we're going to morph?" They nodded. "Into what?"

They looked at Jake, who just shrugged. "Whatever's at the site, I guess. Probably roaches."

My jaw dropped so fast I could hear it pop; the others just mutely accepted the decision.

-(Fascinating creatures,)- Ax commented. –(They seem to be able to go unnoticed everywhere.)-

"Unnoticed? How can you not notice a roach? I hate roaches!"

The others looked at me, as if they'd just come to realize something.

"Jake," Cassie said. "Julie doesn't have any morphs. Just Tobias' hawk."

"Are you telling me you all can morph _cockroaches_?" Somewhere in the back of my mind I knew I sounded hysterical. But _roaches?_

"Well, yeah. Roaches and flies and fleas."

"It's not as bad as you'd think," Marco offered. "You know, once you get past the six legs and the little hairs and-"

I swatted at Marco to make him shut up, not at all amused by his teasing. The mere thought of touching a roach made me a bit green, but to actually turn into one?

Marco ducked my half-hearted swing and Cassie cut in before anything else could happen.

"Julie, do you want to come by the barn and practice morphing? It'd probably be a good idea to pick a few more morphs while you have the time."

"Huh? Oh, I guess so. But I can't stay long, Alex and Andi are coming back from camp today."

"What time?"

I glanced at my watch. "Oh, shit. I need to be home in about twenty minutes." I glanced up at Jake, as if asking his permission to leave. Like the others, I'd come to accept his leadership in spite of his constant denials.

"Alright," he said decisively. "How's tomorrow night sound for going in?"

I almost made a comment about it being a school night, but bit my tongue just in time. How juvenile was that, to be concerned with getting enough sleep for school with the fate of the world hanging in the balance?

"I can't," Rachel cut in. "I've got to baby-sit tomorrow."

Jake nodded to her. "Okay. Anyone have any problems with Tuesday, then?"

I thought with a sinking feeling of my English test on Beowulf Wednesday morning, but again refrained from saying anything. Like Marco said, right before a test, so it probably happened all the time. Besides, I was just the newcomer, causing enough trouble just by being there. I really didn't want to cause even more problems.

Everyone nodded and prepared to leave, Ax disappearing back into the woods. Cassie touched my arm to get my attention. "Do you still have time to come by the barn? It'd probably be a good idea for you to pick up a few more morphs."

"I dunno. I have to go catch the bus to get back home. What kind of morphs do I need?"

She looked thoughtful for a moment. "Well, you've already got a bird. And you'll need to acquire a roach for Tuesday."

I shuddered at the thought, the guiltily remembered my earlier musings. I was just the newcomer, without any right to stir up trouble. That meant sucking it up and morphing a cockroach, just like the others, without complaint. "Okay," I sighed. "Anything else?"

"Battle morph," Rachel cut in, joining our conversation. I hadn't noticed that anyone else was paying attention.

"Battle morph?"

"Yeah. We've all got a favorite morph for battles. You should go to the Gardens and pick one out, too."

"Alright. Cockroach and something that can fight. Anything else?"

Rachel and Cassie looked at each other and Rachel shrugged.

"Anything you think might be useful," Cassie told me. "It's hard to tell before hand what we'll need."

"Okay," I said, checking my watch again. If I hurried, I could just make the next bus home. "I'll think about it. But right now I've got to go."

I said goodbye to the two girls and started back toward the road, following Jake and Marco who were already halfway across the clearing. Marco looked back at me and tapped Jake on the shoulder, then waved goodbye before turning around to join me.

"Taking the bus?" he asked.

"Yeah," I answered, eyeing him suspiciously. He'd been more or less friendly during our 'meeting,' but I hadn't quite forgotten our conversation from the day before.

"Me, too. I'll walk with you."

And that was it. Not 'can I walk with you?' but 'I'll walk with you.' I mutely accepted his presence and kept walking toward civilization. I expected him to say something, to threaten me or deliver some dire warning, but he just walked along beside me in thoughtful silence. Somehow his lack of conversation unnerved me more than his homicide comment the day before.

After a few minutes of walking, I gave in and broke the silence. "So, do I pass the test?"

"Nope," he replied in a perfectly even, pleasant tone.

I had to smile in spite of myself. If nothing else, Marco had a quick enough wit to keep up with my 'out of the blue' comments. "I thought you said the other day you'd trust me if Jake did."

"No, I said I'd welcome you with open arms and a knife. Never said anything about trust."

I searched my memory for a moment and realized he was right. "So how long do I have to put up with secret daggers?"

He shrugged, picking his way through the underbrush. "I trust Jake. He's got good instincts. Good judgment. And I don't doubt your sincerity, but…" His voice trailed off for a moment. "Did Jake tell you about David?"

"Yeah," I answered slowly. Though I knew little about David, I was starting to get a better picture of how he had affected the Animorphs.

"Well, David was a good kid in the beginning, too. No one thought he'd turn out the way he did. Even him."

I scowled at my shoes. "So you think I'm like that? All talk? I have to prove that I can handle this?"

"Right."

I couldn't find an argument to that, so I just stewed for a while as we walked in silence. Again, I was reminded of my delicate position as the 'wild card.' The Animorphs had accepted me out of necessity, and only Jake expressed any sort of confidence in my ability to keep the secret.

"It's not easy, is it?"

Marco's question cut through my thoughts. "What's not easy?"

"Trying to deal with all this. Not being able to tell anyone."

Guiltily, I thought back to the botched phone conversation and the way my near-hysteria had almost let the secret slip. I thought back to back to Paul and our conversation in the bookstore.

"No, it's not. How do you do it?"

We reached the road, coming out of the woods next to Cassie's house and only a block from the bus stop. I saw Jake get his bike from in front of the barn and walk it to the street, going in the opposite direction.

Marco shrugged at my question. "You get used to it, I guess."

I sighed, then saw the bus turn a corner in the distance. "Uh-oh. Better run for it."

We made it to the bus stop at the same time as the bus, paid our fare, and found an empty pair of seats. I started to continue our conversation, but stopped myself just in time. Talking on the bus certainly wouldn't do anything to gain his trust. So instead we sat in strained silence until we reached my stop. I left quickly, glad to be away from him while not quite sure what it was about him that made me uneasy.

Belatedly, I realized that I'd seen Marco's bike leaning against Cassie's barn next to Jake's.


	5. Chapter Five

Memories

Chapter Five

The night Alex and Andi returned from camp was spent in a typical style for my family. We cooked a homemade pizza, ate it in the living room, and the rest of the family enjoyed a movie while Andi and I curled up on the loveseat and cowered. _Alien_ had never been my favorite movie, and I liked it even less after learning of the Yeerks.

Still, I enjoyed spending the evening with my family. Poking Andi at all the right moments to make her jump and hitting Alex when he did the same to me. Laughing at all of Dad's comments and Mom's attempts to explain them away. Stuffing my face with artichoke-heart pizza. Normal stuff.

In the middle of yet another battle between the alien and the crew of the _Nostromo_ our phone rang. Andi screamed and jabbed me with her elbow, which made me scream and Alex fall off the couch laughing. Mom swatted him with a pillow before getting up to answer the phone.

I watched her progress to the kitchen, wondering if it was for me and somehow knowing that it couldn't be good.

Andi kicked me lightly to get my attention. "Hey, Ju-ju, what wrong?"

"I dunno. What's wrong?"

She rolled her eyes in a typical twelve-year-old way. "You're watching Mom like she's about to receive your death orders."

Alex leaned over the arm of the couch and grinned wickedly. "Or maybe she's waiting for a call from a _boy_."

I laughed and pushed him back onto the couch, deciding to play off the boy idea since the death-orders one was far too close to the truth. "I have no idea what you're talking about," I proclaimed, letting myself grin a little.

Andi laughed and grinned. "Ju-ju's got a boyfriend," she sang. "Who is it?"

Alex climbed back on the couch arm and perched there, laughing at my apparent discomfort. "It's Tom, right?"

"No."

"Yes it is. Cause you _like_ him and you think he's just _soooo__ hot_."

"I do not!" I laughed and pushed him back on the couch. "And those are not proper thought for a twelve-year-old and it's none of your business and...and...oh, just watch the movie."

"Julie," Mom called. "It's for you."

"Is it Tom?" Alex asked.

I smacked him with a pillow on my way to the kitchen. Mom rolled her eyes as she handed me the phone as if to say 'I know. Aren't they a pain?'

"Hello?"

"Julie? It's Jake."

"Oh, hi. What do you need?"

"Nothing." He paused and I could almost see him looking over his shoulder. "We need to talk."

"Now?"

"Can you think of a better time?"

I glanced in the living room at my family. Andi had a blanket over her head and Alex was adding his own sound effects, while Dad used my absence to help himself to some of my artichoke pizza. "I'm kinda trying to spend time with my family. Can't it wait until tomorrow?"

"If you think you'll have time tomorrow."

I sighed and looked in living room again. Mom slapped Dad's hand and made him put my pizza slice back on my plate.

"Alright, fine. Come meet me on the back porch."

I slammed the phone down and glared at it.

"Are you okay, honey?" Mom called.

"Fine. Jake's coming over for a moment. We'll be on the back porch."

Alex's head popped up over the back of the couch and he grinned at me. I cursed silently, realizing how that sounded when taken with our earlier conversation. Since there was no way to fix the situation, I just went to the back porch to sit and wait for Jake.

He didn't keep me waiting long.

"So what did you want," I asked, patting the concrete step next to me as he walked around the corner of the house.

He sat next to me and stretched, reaching his arms back toward the house and his legs out toward the yard. "How are the twins?"

"They're fine. A bit miffed at having to back to school tomorrow, but I don't pity them."

He laughed and watched the backyard, carefully avoiding looking at me. "Didn't they get to miss a week of school to go to that camp thingy?"

"Yeah. The joys of being a super-genius science nerd." I stared at his profile, waiting for him to say something, but he just kept looking at the oak tree. "So, did you really just come over here to ask about the twins? Because you could have done that over the phone."

"Cassie said she offered to help you with the morphing."

"Yeah, she did. It was a nice offer, but I had to get back home." I nodded back toward the house. "You know, family stuff."

Jake sighed and rubbed his neck with one hand. "I know family is important to you, Julie, but this is important, too. When were you planning on practicing? Do you even have anything other than Tobias' hawk?"

I folded my hands in my lap and stared at them guiltily. "No," I whispered.

"When were you planning on acquiring a roach morph? Or any other morphs for that matter?"

I glared at him, put on the defensive by his accusing tone. "I'm going to the Gardens tomorrow, I'll have you know. Cassie and Rachel said I should probably look for something with fire-power and roaches aren't exactly hard to find." In all actuality, I hadn't made any plans for acquiring any morphs, but it sounded like a good plan.

"Going to the Gardens? Were you planning on just walking into the cages, or acquiring something from the petting zoo?"

I fumed, furious that he was right and had caught me in a less-than-intelligent moment. "Okay, so maybe I hadn't thought that far ahead. I'm still new at this you know."

"I do know. Which is why I think it's important for you to get together with Cassie and practice. She's the best morpher out of all of us."

"How can you have a 'best morpher'? Either you turn into an animal or you don't."

"Well, if you'd taken her offer you might've found out."

I looked up from my hands. Jake was staring at me instead of the oak and his expression was somewhere between furious and disappointed.

"Look, I'm sorry I didn't totally ignore my family and spend all my time practicing to be a freak."

"Well you should be. This isn't a game, Julie, this is life and death we're dealing with."

I tried to match his glare with one of my own, but it didn't quite work. I knew he was right, even if I didn't want to admit it.

"Fine. I'm sorry. I made a mistake. What do I do now?"

Jake sighed heavily and turned back to the yard. "Nothing. It's too late to do anything tonight. But find some time to get a roach and practice morphing. And if you can, get Tobias to take you to the Garden after they close."

"Why after they close?"

He smiled. "It's a bit easier to get in after-hours."

It took a few moments of staring at him to understand what he was saying. "You sneak in using morphs?"

"Well, we can't exactly walk in and ask to pet all the lions and tigers and bears."

"Oh my."

He grinned a bit, as if just humoring me and stood to leave. "Did you get that history paper done?"

I stared at him for a full half a minute with my mouth wide open in shock. "Oh, shit, that's due tomorrow, isn't it?"

"I'll take that as a 'no.'"

I jumped up from my seat and hurried back to the house. "Bye. See you at school," I called before rushing inside.

He just grinned and shook his head and walked away.

* * *

It took until the wee hours of the morning to finish the paper, but I did get it done. After turning in the finished product at the beginning of history class, I made my way to the back of the room, put my head on my desk, and decided to sleep through class. Fortunately, I wasn't the only one dead-tired and my teacher decided to give us a break and let us 'self-study.'

My other classes didn't go so well, and by the time I reached study hall, I was thinking longingly of the couches in the library and wondering if the librarians would let me sleep there.

Cassie intercepted me on my way to a couch and guided me to a table. "Hey, Julie. I was wondering if you could help me with something."

Tired as I was, I recognized an attempt at 'secret code' when I saw one. "Okay, sure. As long as it's not biology. I'm not doing so hot in that class."

"I was thinking more along the lines history. Jake says you're really good at that."

I caught the slight stress on Jake's name and took that to mean that she'd talked to him. We found a secluded corner and pulled out our books and spread out our homework and looked for all the world like we were studying. But what we talked about had little to do with history.

"I was wondering if you wanted to come over after school today and try out a roach morph. Maybe pick up some of the other things we've got in the barn."

"Like what?"

"Well, a wolf for starters. We've got a female in there right now." Cassie nodded and bent over her paper to write and answer, keeping up the appearance of two students studying.

I pointed to her answer. "The Korean War ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty."

"Oh, right." She erased her answer and re-wrote it. "Anyway, if you want to come over, you're more than welcome to."

"Um...sure. I guess so."

I didn't know what else to say, so we just went through the motions of reading, silently waiting for the other to say something.

"Jake said you two talked last night."

"Yeah, he came over for a little bit."

Cassie put her pencil down for a moment, pausing the charade, and gave me a concerned look. "I know it's hard, suddenly having to juggle all this with school and family and stuff. If you ever need someone to talk to-"

"Thanks for the offer, but I'm fine."

She picked up her pencil again and looked down at her paper, still obviously concerned. "Alright then. But we're all here for you if you change your mind."

I frowned and thumbed through my book. Was it really so obvious that I was struggling after one day? And why? Because I'd had to turn down one offer of help? I didn't want to be a burden to these people; they had enough troubles of their own. Besides, if Cassie and Jake and Marco could juggle everything, then so could I.

Of course, if I wanted to carry my own weight, then I'd have to learn how to morph. Which meant practicing with Cassie, even though all I wanted to do was sleep.

I sighed and put down my book. "So. Are we going to your house right after school?"

Cassie smiled and looked up from her paper. "Sure."

* * *

Roaches were not as easy to find as I'd thought, even in a barn. We had to call on Tobias and his superior eyesight to finally find one crawling around under the cages.

"Okay, Julie," Cassie said soothingly, holding the roach in one hand. "Just concentrate on acquiring the roach. Don't think about anything else. Do you remember how?"

"Yeah." I squirmed and glared at the roach in disgust. Up close, the thing was even worse than I'd imagined.

_Don't forget, you're saving the world here, Julie_, I told myself as I carefully laid the tip of one finger on the roach's back. It felt like a stone, or any other hard surface, and I tried to concentrate on that, instead of the fact that I'd be turning into the thing in a few minutes. His legs stopped motoring in thin air and his antenna dropped a little, something Cassie assured me was a 'good sign.'

"Okay, fine. I'm done." I pulled my finger back and wiped it on the leg of my jeans, shuddering as she dropped the bug to the floor and we watched it scurry away. "Now what?"

"You've got your morphing suit, right?"

"My who?"

Cassie glanced up at Tobias, who was sitting in the rafters looking as amused as a red-tailed hawk could look. "Maybe you should leave for this part."

(Sure thing,)- he replied. -(I'd probably get in trouble for staying.)-

"Wait, why does he have to leave?"

"Um, well, you see...it's a little difficult to learn how to morph clothes. It takes a few tries to do it correctly and, well, I don't think you'd want Tobias around to watch that part."

"Oh right."

(Hey, Tobias doesn't want to be around to watch that either. No offence.)-

"None taken."

(Do you still want to go to the Gardens tonight?)-

I glared up at the ceiling. "Jake talked to you, too?"

(Why? Something wrong with that?)-

I heard the defensive edge in his voice and decided to drop the subject. I didn't like the fact that they were all talking about me behind my back, but there was no point in getting mad about it. "No. Sorry. Are you still offering to take me?"

(Sure. I'll swing by around nine.)-

"Fine." I nodded and pretended to interested in my feet until he flew out the open loft door. Cassie was looking at me with that concerned expression again, so I put on a brave face. "So, what's all this about a morphing suit?"

Cassie found an extra leotard for me to use and explained how to morph. I tried it first with the roach morph, but as soon as I saw two enormous roach legs burst from my abdomen, I started screaming and lost concentration. Cassie was by my side in an instant, trying to talk me out of my hysterical state. After a great deal of coaxing, I finally managed to demorph.

"Well, that didn't go so well," she commented as she helped me over to a bale of hay.

"Ya think?" I collapsed gratefully and held my hands over my stomach, constantly feeling to make sure there wasn't anything extra there.

Cassie chewed thoughtfully on her bottom lip as she watched me draw my knees up to my chest and shiver. "Perhaps we should start with something you're more familiar with. Let you morph the hawk a couple of times and get the hang of morphing clothes."

"Sure," I said, too shaken to put up much of a fight. "Whatever you say."

I stood up and noticed the damage done to my borrowed leotard. Two jagged holes had appeared right where my roach legs had been minutes before. I groaned and covered them with my hands.

"Don't worry about it," she told me. "It's an extra. And you can still use it to practice. Now, come over here and try morphing the hawk."

We spent about half an hour morphing and demorphing in her barn until I managed to morph the leotard without destroying it. Cassie then led me around the barn, letting me acquire a wolf and great horned owl and practice them. She was about to suggest the cockroach morph again when we heard the sound of a truck pulling up to the house outside. Hurriedly, I dressed in my normal clothes and left before her dad could find us in the barn and start asking questions. Before I left Cassie made me promise to practice the roach more at home. I shuddered at the idea, but agreed none the less.

And I did. After rushing through my homework I locked my door and turned out the lights and morphed the cockroach. I closed my eyes and concentrated on the sensation of falling and tried not to imagine how I looked as extra legs grew from my middle and my skin became a hard, brown exoskeleton. By the time my eyelids disappeared my eyesight was so poor it didn't matter.

In just under two minutes I had changed into a roach sitting in the middle of my darkened room. I felt the roach mind surface, much as I had with the hawk and the wolf. The roach was waiting; edgy and a little nervous and waiting for something to happen.

_This isn't so bad,_ I thought, crawling over to inspect my shoe. My antenna waved around wildly, smelling the sole. After a few minutes of getting used to walking on six legs and smelling things, I decided I'd done my duty and demorphed, noticing that I felt a bit more comfortable with the idea of going from human to insect and back again. Not comfortable enough to do it with the lights on, but enough that I didn't go to pieces at the clear sight of my giant, sectioned underbelly.

I ignored my shaking hands, dressed again over the morphing suit I'd picked out for myself and looked at the clock. 8:30. Enough time to do a bit of reading for Wednesday's test before Tobias showed up.

I settled onto my bed with my English book open in my lap and promptly fell asleep.

* * *

When I woke Tuesday morning I felt as if someone had hammered me with a semi. I turned away from the sunlight streaming in my window, covered my head with my pillow and groaned.

"Wake up, you." Andi threw a shoe at me, but I merely groaned again. She decided to take more drastic measures and snatched my pillow away from me. "Come on, Julie. You're going to be late!"

"What time is it?" I croaked.

"Six o'clock."

"Plenty of time." I pulled the covers over my head.

She yanked them off the bed. "Get. Up."

I considered getting up, if only to throw her out of the room, but even the thought took too much effort. Andi decide to help me out and pulled on one arm until I nearly fell out of the bed.

"Alright, alright," I said, jerking my arm free and sitting up. "Why the hell are you such a morning person?"

"Someone here has to be. Now get up and get ready for school."

I just yawned and stretched, scratching the top of my head. "Whatever."

After she left I pulled myself out of bed and realized I'd fallen asleep in my clothes, including my newly appointed 'morphing suit,' but I hadn't gone to the Gardens. Immediately I felt guilty for having fallen asleep, but there was nothing I could do besides dress, go to school, and hope Jake didn't get too mad. At least I'd acquired the cockroach for that night.

I didn't see any of the other Animorphs at school. They tried not to hang out as a group, although I had no idea why. What was so strange about a bunch of teens forming a group in a social setting as volatile as high school?

When Cassie met me in study hall I was expecting a lecture about missing out on the Gardens trip, but she simply handed me a note with a time and place scrawled on it. _8:00__, QuckStop by the theatre._ I nodded, then folded up the note and stuck it in my biology book and went on with my homework. I didn't do very well, since every few moments thoughts of turning into a roach invaded my mind. I wondered how I'd avoid being stepped on. How I'd handle morphing a roach in broad daylight around the others. And of course, I wondered about Marco's prophecy that they'd be 'doing something that could get us killed.'

When the last bell rang I heaved a sigh, put away my half-finished homework and followed the crowd outside. I had nearly four hours to kill until the mission and somehow I doubted I'd get much homework done. I was too worried about possibly getting killed.

Instead of taking the bus home, I decided to walk, hoping it would calm me down. About halfway there I decided I didn't really want to go home and stopped at a playground, sitting on the swing set and watching the kids play. It was a peaceful setting, with the kids running and shouting and the mothers gossiping and a few middle school kids grouped in one corner trying to look cool and a lone hawk wheeling through the sky.

I did a double take and looked at the hawk again, wondering if it was Tobias. Knowing from experience how good those eyes were, I dug through my bag until I found my writing journal and opened it to a blank page.

_Tobias?_

I sat on the swing set for a few minutes, hoping he would answer. Eventually the hawk flew closer to our little park and settled in a tree behind me.

(Hey, Julie.)-

I stared at the page for a while, trying to put my feelings into thoughts, but I couldn't quite do it.

_Sorry I skipped out last night,_ I wrote instead.

(Don't worry about it. You looked exhausted.)-

_I was._

(Are you ready for tonight?)-

_No._

The sound of his soft laughter in my head made me smile at my journal, but something was still bothering me.

_You didn't tell the others?_

(About what?)-

_Last night._

(No. There's no need to. We'll go another night. Besides, yesterday was busy enough for you.)-

His words didn't quite comfort me, but I scrawled a quick _Thanks_ anyway.

(So who are Nina and Thom?)-

I blushed furiously and slammed my journal shut, stuffing it back into my bag. Nina and Thom were two characters from my story. A story I'd never shared with anyone but Paul. So he must have read it in my journal. I seriously considered giving him the finger, but there were too many small children with their mothers around.

Tobias just laughed. Not a malicious laugh, but still a laugh. -(I'll see you tonight, Julie.)- He flew away, leaving me scowling at me shoes.

* * *

I must have been an emotional roller coaster those last few hours before going to the QuickStop. I must have been terrified and angry and hurt and lonely and a million other things that don't make the least bit of sense. But all I remember, all the Ellimist could show me, is a few hours of sitting on a swing set, watching the children play.

* * *

I barely spent any time at the house, stopping by there just long enough to drop off my bag and tell Mom I was going to a movie with Paul. I told the lie without blinking and she accepted it in the same manner. I ran into Alex on the way out the door and gave him a quick hug, wondering if I'd ever get a chance to do so again.

The QuickStop was an old gas station that had gone out of business recently and was fast becoming a favorite hangout for the local bad-kid wannabes. Fortunately, it was in the soon-to-be parking lot of the new theatre and scheduled to be torn down. The neighborhood would be safe from bored gangs. Just in time for the invading aliens.

I decided to go by foot and saw Tobias circling overhead in the darkening sky as I approached.

Jake and the others were gathered behind the building, out of sight from the street and all except Ax were stripped down to their morphing outfits already. Hurriedly, I stepped out of my shoes and outer clothes and added them to the pile, blushing and avoiding eye contact the whole time. But when I finally had to stand before the group in my black leggings and green one-piece swimsuit, the only comment I got was from Marco.

"Well, at least she has more fashion sense than Cassie."

I looked at Cassie, who was wearing black on black, and was about to ask what he meant when Jake cut me off.

"Okay," he said, signaling to Tobias. "We're all here."

(There's no one coming for about a mile, and they look like they've both got...other places to go.)-

"All right, everyone ready?"

I wanted to say no, but instead asked, "What are we looking for?"

"Anything. An office. How they're connected to the pool. Anything that might be useful."

"Right, well, that was all helpful and specific."

Jake ignored my comment, but Marco didn't. "You know, she's right. We don't even know what we're looking for. We're going in there blind, without a clue, hoping that we stumble on something useful and don't get stepped on."

Rachel leaned over and whispered in my ear, "Here it comes."

"This is insane. Not the kind of insane, oh-sweet-heavens-I'm-going-to-die insane that we're used to, but it's still insane."

"Well, it's official," Rachel said, clapping her hands together. "We can get started now."

Everyone laughed a bit, slightly nervous, but I just stood there, confused. Until I saw Ax go from blue fuzz to dun-brown armor. I bit down on my lip quickly to keep from screaming and turned around to morph so I wouldn't have to watch the others.

When we were done, we were just six little brown bugs, ready to scamper across the broken concrete. Tobias stayed hawk long enough to guide us the hundred feet it took to get to the half finished theatre.

It was amazing to go speeding along that close to the ground. Like being strapped to the bottom of a race car, despite the fact that I was going no faster than a human could walk. We reached the building in about ten minutes and Tobias, after one last quick look around, morphed to roach and joined us.

We slipped under the door and came into a room with sawdust all over the floor. The sawdust was really all we could see from our vantage point on the floor.

(Any idea where we are?)- Marco asked.

(The lobby, of course,)- Rachel countered. -(Haven't you ever been in a theatre before?)-

(Head to the right,)- Jake said. -(Erek said we might find the offices over there.)-

Erek's guess was good and after a few minutes of searching, we found a series of temporary walls that were easy to squeeze under. Inside were rooms that were much smaller and had less sawdust on the floor.

(Hey, I see a desk,)- Cassie called.

After that, we split up, searching each of the three offices, but didn't find anything useful until Jake gave in and allowed Ax to demorph and hack into one of the computers. He kept up a running commentary of all the files he found, most of which were on finance. I wanted to get a look at those and find out how the Yeerks got their funding.

(See if you can find anything that looks like a schedule,)- Marco suggested before I could decide whether or not to speak up.

(There's one here, but it doesn't seem to have anything unusual.)-

(Was it locked? They probably have one for public eyes and one that's hidden.)-

Between Ax and Marco, they managed to find everything the Yeerks wanted to keep hidden, including a building schedule for the entire project. The connection to the Yeerk pool would be a series of tunnels leading to each movie screen. The tunnels had already been dug by Taxxons and entrances were hidden under the floor, waiting for the screens to be built.

They were eerily silent after learning that bit of information. I wondered, briefly, what the Yeerk pool was like.

(Ax, see if you can find anything else on there.)-

(I'm looking Prince Jake, but-)-

Everyone tensed up when Ax stopped speaking. -(What is it?)-

(I thought I heard something. I'm going to morph back now, Price Jake.)-

(Good idea.)-

I picked up vibrations from the floor. The roach in me became even more nervous and jumpy.

(Someone's outside,)- Tobias observed.

(Ax, are you done morphing?)- Jake asked. -(We need to get out of here.)-

Before Ax could answer, the person outside opened the door and turned on the light. The roach went out of control.

Light! Light! Run! Hide! Where? Away from the light!

My tiny roach legs powered so fast I ran over another roach in my way. I couldn't stop it. I tried to stop, to get control but my body wouldn't respond to anything but the roach's fear and the need to be away from the light and vibrations.

Light! Footsteps! Run! Hide!

(Julie, what are you doing?)-

Even Jake's voice in my mind couldn't do anything to stop me. I ran for the wall, leaving behind the other Animorphs with Ax half-morphed behind the table.


	6. Chapter Six

Memories

Chapter Six

I reached the safety of the temporary wall in seconds. I cowered there with my antenna swinging madly back and forth, looking for danger.

(Julie, what are you doing?)- Jake screamed.

It was dark in the wall, which calmed the roach considerably. But all my thoughts were still focused on the vibrations outside. The person outside walked into the room, stopped for a few moments, then turned and left, turning out the lights again on the way out.

Slowly, as the danger faded, I gained control of the morph again. The roach was safe once again and no longer cared about anything. I, however, was mortified. I stayed under the wall, wondering what the others would have to say to me once everything was over.

(Ax, are you done morphing?)- Jake asked again.

(Yes.)-

(Good, then let's get out of here.)-

I ran ahead of the others, using the walls and my memory to guide me out the door and across the parking lot to the Quickstop. I hugged close to the wall and started to demorph before the others had caught up with me, but I was still the last one done. Yet another example of my lack of practice.

"What happened back there?" Jake nearly screamed as soon as he had a normal mouth.

Mine was still too disfigured to produce more than gibberish so I had no choice but to wait and attempt to look repentant.

"You lost control of your morph and _ran away_! Do you have any idea how dangerous that is? What if that guy had seen you? Or stepped on you? And Ax was still half-morphed. What if something happened and we needed you while you were hiding under a wall?"

"Nothing happened," I countered in a quiet voice. He was right and I knew it, but I still argued back, although without much conviction. "And I was a roach; he probably wouldn't have thought anything of it."

"We can't take those kinds of chances," he continued. "The Yeerks know we're fighting them, even if they think we're Andalites. They'll be suspicious of anything, even bugs."

I shrank away from him, staring at the cigarette buts that littered the ground. "Nothing happened," I muttered again, still clinging stubbornly to my one defense.

"That's not the point. The point is you told us you'd be okay for this and you weren't. You _ran_. We need to know we can trust you, Julie."

"I'm _trying_!" I yelled suddenly. "I'm doing the best I can here, but no one told me stuff like that was going to happen! How was I supposed to know something like that would happen just because someone turned on the lights?"

"That's why we try to practice morphs before we have to use them. Why-"

Jake broke off when Cassie touched his arm lightly. He turned away and rubbed the back of his neck with one hand.

"Don't let it happen again."

"I won't," I muttered, head hanging in shame.

"Look, there's nothing more we can do tonight and it's getting late. Let's go home."

I watched the others as they prepared to leave, hanging in the back and staying out of the way. Ax morphed quickly and he and Tobias flew away while the others dressed in silence, occasionally giving me glances that were sympathetic and disgusted by turn.

Only Marco kept his gaze firmly turned away. He wouldn't even glance my way, his anger and disappointment evident in every action. After he was done he started walking away, then called to Jake when he noticed he was alone.

Jake looked from me to Marco, unable to decide between what he thought was his responsibility, and getting away from me. "Will you be okay?" he asked.

"Yeah. I'm fine. Go home, I'll be fine."

Jake left and I dressed slower than necessary and took the long way home. When I reached my room sometime after midnight I went strait to bed. I tried not to think. A difficult thing to do in a silence that offered no distractions.

* * *

The next morning, the first thing I saw when I reached to turn off the alarm was my English textbook sitting out on my desk. I'd left it out as a reminder to myself to finish reading Beowulf. The test was second period.

"Oh shit," I muttered to no one in particular. I looked at the clock and tried to figure out how much time I had to cram before I remembered _why_ I hadn't finished the reading. I fell back on my pillow, covered my head with my blanket, and groaned. Thoughts of my failure and cowardice ran through my head and I considered faking an illness. Mom was so understanding with my frequent 'stomach bugs' and occasionally thought I was truly sick.

_Right.__ Because skipping school will really earn Marco's approval._

My eyes snapped open and I uncovered my head and stared at the ceiling. Why should Marco's approval mean anything to me? If anyone's approval mattered it was Jake's, or the whole group's, but certainly not Marco's.

Marco, Jake, or all of them, it didn't matter. The fact remained that skipping school would solve nothing but my study problem and probably just make the others even more angry with me. Invading aliens were bad enough without added drama.

With a heavy sigh I hauled myself out of bed and got ready for school. I carried my Lit book with me, trying to study as I got ready, but it didn't matter. The Animorphs had made me put off more of the required reading that I'd thought; there was too much to finish in one morning. I counted on the fact that I'd read a majority of the epic poem to get me through the test.

What I didn't count on was my lack of sleep and other worries. Throughout the test if I wasn't yawning, I was wondering what would have happened to Ax if the man in office had seen him. I left many of my answers blank and half-assed the rest of them.

No one approached me the entire day about the previous night. Even Cassie left me alone in study hall. I spent the entire day thinking of things to say to them, of ways to argue and defend myself, but the opportunity to use them never presented itself. Perhaps that's why, when I saw Marco walking home after school, I ran to catch up with him.

"Hey. Mind if I walk with you?"

He glanced at me for a moment, then looked ahead again. "Go ahead."

We walked in silence for a while. After the crowd of kids going home thinned out a bit, I waited for him to say something. To berate me, or yell at me, or lecture me, or something. But he just kept walking.

"I really screwed up last night, didn't I?"

He paused before answering with a simple, "Yeah."

It was a situation I hadn't anticipated. I expected the other Animorphs to fight with me, especially Marco with his tendency to be brutally honest. I tried to get my thoughts in order, to say something that might clear the air.

"I'm not like David," I blurted out. "I'm just trying to adjust here."

I snapped my mouth shut and groaned inwardly, telling myself that talking about David was _not_ a good way to 'clear the air.'

"I know you're not," he replied. "David wouldn't have felt sorry about something like last night."

I had nothing to say to that. Marco wasn't giving me anything to work with and his quiet demeanor gave no hint of what he was thinking. Although, the very fact that he was being quiet told me something was wrong. Normally he'd be talking up a storm and making jokes.

We'd almost reached the point where our paths split before I spoke again. "Look, I'm really sorry about last night. It's just that this is a lot to deal with all at once and I'm still really new at the whole superhero-by-night thing. And I want to do this well, I really do, and I won't let you guys down again."

He stopped walking and looked at me. Really looked at me. The same way he did in the mall bookstore. "Do you hear yourself? You're still talking about this whole thing like its some group project we've got going on. Like you think the worst that can happen is a bad grade or something. This isn't something you 'do well.' Either you do it, or you end up dead. There is no third option."

I couldn't think of a single thing to say in response, so I just stared at him expectantly, waiting for him to say something I could use.

"Why did you think you had to come talk to me, anyway? You don't need my approval to be an Animorph."

"Yes I do."

As soon as the words were out of my mouth I regretted them. Even then I didn't fully understand why I needed to be in his good graces; it certainly wasn't something I could explain to him.

"Why?"

I shrugged. "Well, not just you. Everyone. I'm struggling here; I need support."

Marco broke eye contact and stared at the ground, running a hand over the longer hair on top of his head. He needed a haircut.

"Yeah, well, that's what we keep Cassie and Jake around for."

He turned to leave and I spoke again when I should have just let him go. "I meant what I said about doing better from now on."

He stopped, but didn't face me. "I'll believe that promise when I see it."

* * *

I slammed the front door closed behind me, stormed into the living room, and threw my bag on the couch.

'I'll believe that promise when I see it.'

Marco didn't trust me. Not that I could really blame him. I'd done nothing but screw up since joining the group. But it wasn't just that he didn't trust me. He was waiting for me to make a mistake. Like he thought he knew what was going to happen and was just waiting for me to prove him right.

That ugly, arrogant, self-righteous SOB.

I kicked the couch for good measure and Mom poked her head through the door to the kitchen. "Are you alright, honey?"

"Just fine," I grumbled, falling onto the couch and picking up the remote. Mom abandoned whatever it was she had been doing and joined me on the couch.

"What's wrong?" she asked, putting an arm around my shoulder. I looked at her and I could see what she was really feeling. She was worried about me, but she was more worried about finding out what was bothering me. Scared that whatever it was would be something she couldn't deal with.

Mom had me when she was sixteen. By some miracle, Dad agreed to marry her and they made that marriage work. But it forced her to grow up too fast, to skip steps in the natural process. My mom was the most immature adult I knew, fully capable of dealing with high-school drama but not much else when it came to her children. I was as old as she was when she had me. I was at the age that she knew nothing about. And it scared her.

But my life was a lot scarier than whatever she was imagining.

"It's nothing Mom. I just had a bad day at school. That's all."

Keep it safe, I thought. Keep it to things she can deal with.

"Want to tell me about it?"

I shook my head. "It's nothing. Really. Someone just said something that pissed me off. No big deal."

She just nodded and kissed my forehead. "Well, don't worry about it, then. By tomorrow no one will remember what was said."

"Yeah."

I just sat there on the couch and scowled at my shoes until she took the hint and left. For the first time in my life, I resented my mother's past. I couldn't ask her how to deal with people who didn't trust me. She couldn't tell me what to do about my situation, hypotheticals or no. She didn't know anything about how to deal with a mistake or act mature in the face of failure. She just went bumbling through life with that stupid smile, not caring what people thought of it.

The remote was still in my hand. I turned on the TV and started flipping through channels, hoping the mindless act would help block thoughts of the previous night. But it didn't work. No matter how many channels I flipped through, all I could think about was Ax and the man in the theatre.

After watching Jerry Springer for five minutes before realizing it, I decided that the TV wasn't helping assuage my guilt. In the back of my mind I knew what would make me feel better, or less guilty at least, but the idea still made me squirm.

I had to practice morphing. The last thing I wanted to do on a quiet afternoon. But it was either run around the kitchen as a roach or sit on the couch feeling sorry for myself.

Jerry made the decision for me. Someone from the audience ran on stage and started a fight. I turned off the television in disgust and headed up to my room. Once there I reached for the lights, then decided to leave them on and changed into my morphing outfit.

The change from human to roach was getting progressively easier to deal with. As my arms stretched and my fingers melted into claws and my skin turned to hard brown armor I felt nauseous, but the morphing process didn't stop. I even kept my eyes open throughout the entire process.

I waited, fully cockroach, in the middle of my well-lit room, for the instincts I knew were coming.

LIGHT! RUN! RUN! HIDE! DANGER! LIGHT!

My roach body ran for the bed, which was the nearest shadow. I tried to stop myself but couldn't. Just like in the theatre, it was like my body wasn't under my own control. Once I reached the safety of the dark, the roach calmed down and I was able to think again. In a human body, I would have scowled at something or hit my head on the desk. Simply morphing was getting me nowhere fast.

Preparing myself for the rush of insect fear, I tried to make myself run into the middle of the room again and got a few feet before the instincts had me looking for a hiding place.

LIGHT! LIGHT! RUN!

No! Don't hide! Stop it!

RUN! HIDE!

I was only barely aware of myself in the grip of the fear, but that fear was becoming familiar. Familiar enough that I could remember who I was and what I was doing.

I thought of Ax to distract myself. Ax, helpless in mid-morph and killed by a controller. It was a sick image but it worked. Fear is a very powerful tool. And my human fear of causing someone's death far outweighed the roach's fear of he light.

The thought of Ax dead was enough to distract me from the roach instincts. I inched toward the centre of the room, just to prove I could. And even though I could still feel the roach's instincts telling me to run and hide, I didn't let them rule me. Slowly, as I walked around the well-lit room, I learned to control the morph. I walked around the room and crawled up the side of my desk and explored the keyboard. The instinctive need to run and hide was still there, but I was learning how to control it.

I heard voices in the hallway. Incoherent vibrations to my roach sense. I hid under the keyboard, not from any instinct, but because I knew that if one of the twins came in looking for me and found a roach on the desk, they'd keep it in a jar and perform 'experiments.' Dad was forever rescuing hapless insects from them.

Once the voices were gone, I crawled back to the centre of the room and demorphed, remembering something else from the night before. Jake was right when he pointed out that morphing didn't get rid of certain risks, it just added a truckload of new ones.

But I was too elated with success to really take much notice. I'd done it. I'd figured out how to control my morph, albeit a bit late. I shoved that thought to the back of my mind and went in search of the twins, convinced that they had been the voices I'd heard.

Andi met me in the hallway and gave me a flyer. It was an ad for The Gardens, with a coupon attached, that had been handed out en mass at their school.

"Want to go this weekend?" she asked.

"Hm? Uh, sure. Sounds like fun."

She told me she'd brought home a handful of the flyers, enough to get the whole family in at a discount, and that Mom was excited at the prospect of a 'family outing.'

I nodded and smiled, but didn't pay much attention to what she was saying. My thoughts were focused on the flyer in my hands. Specifically on a small section promoting new animals gained for a short period of time thanks to a zoo transfer.

For the next two weeks, my favorite animal would be living a few miles away. And this thing could fight.

I'd show those self-righteous Animorphs I could do things right.

* * *

That night I gave up sleep in favor of a trip to the Gardens. Breaking in was absurdly easy. I simply morphed to owl and flew over the gates and the guards. I was worried about getting lost, as I always did when I visited the Gardens on the ground, but I could see everything from the air and to my owl eye the entire scene was bright as day. I found the reptile house with no problem. Beside it, the Gardens employees had converted a large open area to a temporary habitat. Home away from home for the Komodo Dragon. The King of Reptiles.

Unfortunately, I was so excited to be doing something progressive that I ignored my common sense and forgot that the Komodos are territorial. Extremely territorial. The giant monitor asleep in his cave didn't notice or care about an owl landing nearby. But once I started demorphing, the sounds my joints made as they twisted and popped back into place woke him. An owl might not be threatening, but apparently I was.

The monitor came charging out of the cave before I was fully human again and I screamed. My vocal cords were still changing, so the noise came out somewhere between a scream and a screech and I prayed that the guards hadn't heard. Stumbling on legs that were still growing, I scrambled for the skinny tree at my back and reached for the lowest limb just as my arms grew fingers strong enough to grip it. I pulled my body up behind me, grateful that being half-morphed meant I was smaller and significantly lighter than normal. I climbed up a few more branches before they threatened to break under me and stopped. I looked down at the monitor with eyes that were fully human in a face that still had feathers. He was pacing below my tree, agitated but unable to follow me.

I breathed a sigh of relief and closed my eyes, trying to calm down enough to finish demorphing. Once I was done I hugged the tree trunk, aware that the limb I was sitting on was groaning under my full weight. The monitor was still pacing below me; I'd have to think of something soon or risk falling on top of him.

I looked down at the reptile I was planning to acquire. He was about eight feet long, the standard size for a Komodo Dragon, with a powerful tail that dragged the ground behind him as he paced. In the dark, I couldn't see much else, but I knew he had claws and teeth that could easily kill a full grown deer. Or a small human girl.

I climbed down to a lower, thicker branch to think. The Komodo seemed to be loosing interest in me, since I was no longer an active threat. I worried that he would return to his cave. If I tried to approach him there, I wouldn't have the safety of the tree to return to. I stayed put in the tree and tried to think of a way out while still looking menacing enough to keep the monitor near me. I thought back to the cockroach and the way he seemed to go into a trance when I acquired him and slowly a plan started to take shape.

Too slowly. The Komodo decided a girl stuck in a tree wasn't a threat to his territory and headed back to his cave. In a panic, I scrambled to the lowest branch and jumped to the ground, running to catch the monitor's tail before he could turn around.

He glared at me. The Komodo's tail is as long as the rest of his body, so he had plenty of room to turn and face his attacker, though I'm sure he could have thrown me off just by twitching his tail. I pushed that thought aside, took a firmer grip on his tail, and concentrated. The Komodo stopped moving and his eyelids half closed, as if he were about to fall asleep. I kept contact with the rough skin of his tail even as I stood and prepared to run back to the tree.

I dropped the tail and ran for my life. The monitor came out of his trance after about a second and chased after me. I reached the safety of my tree just as he caught up with me, pulling my foot up onto the branch just inches ahead of his snapping jaw. He was surprisingly fast for an animal that had been raised in captivity.

I climbed up a few more branches and looked down again, suppressing the urge to laugh like a maniac. I'd faced a deadly animal and come away alive and without a scratch. I wouldn't have to put up with Jake's scolding or Marco's mistrust. I'd prove that I could hold my own as an Animorph.

As the monitor lost interest again and ambled away, I morphed owl from my tree branch and flew home.

* * *

"You did what?"

We were on our way to Cassie's barn after school the next day, Jake pushing his bike and me coming from the bus stop. He didn't even wait to hear my full story before starting a lecture.

"What on Earth possessed you to go the Gardens by yourself? You could have been killed! Or injured, or caught be security!"

I scowled at the ground and kicked a rock. "Well I wasn't."

"That's not the point!"

I turned so that I was in front of him and stopped walking. "Why? Why can't that be the point? Here I am, perfectly safe and with a brand new battle morph. Doesn't that count for anything?"

Jake thought for a moment, opening and closing his mouth a few times. "Tell someone else before you pull a crazy stunt like that again. Don't go off on your own. You could get hurt."

He walked around me and I followed him to the barn, still scowling. Inside, Marco and Cassie were waiting. I took up a spot on a bale of hay across from Marco and Jake went to help Cassie feed a pill to an injured wolf. No one said anything until Rachel and Tobias showed up a few moments later.

"Alright," Jake said as he wiped his hands on his pants. "Here's the deal. We have to figure out what to do about this theatre before they have a chance to open it."

"We're going to have to attack it," Rachel announced, giving Marco a look that dared him to argue with her. "There's no other way to get them to stop. Look, we've done it before, like with that hospital thing last year. If the Yeerks know that we know about the theatre, they'll shut it down in a heartbeat."

(She makes a good point,)- Tobias offered from his perch on the crossbeams. -(They won't risk giving us the chance to attack them publicly and draw attention.)-

Marco leaned against a bale of hay and crossed his arms. "I can't believe we're even considering this."

"Do you have a better plan?" Rachel asked.

"No, but that doesn't mean I like this one." He sighed and ran a hand through the hair that still needed a haircut. "Much as I hate to agree with Xena here, I can't find another way out of this mess. The Yeerks won't let us expose them to the public." I could hear the doubt in Marco's voice. He wasn't sure that the threat was enough to make the Yeerks run and hide and I didn't blame him. Why should they be afraid of us? Or even the guerilla Andalites they thought we were?

But still, it was a possibility. And doing anything was better than sitting around a barn watching Cassie change the bandage on a half-drugged wolf.

The others seemed to think so too.

"Should we put it too a vote?" Jake asked.

Rachel was the first to raise her voice. "I'm in."

"No surprise there," Marco said good-naturedly. She stuck her tongue out at him and after a few moments of thought, he threw up his hands. "Alright, let's give it a try."

"Cassie?" Jake turned to her, asking for her vote.

She sighed as she finished her work with the wolf and put him back in his cage. "We've got to do something," she said. "I'm in, too."

(Me, too.)-

"Julie?"

Everyone turned to me. The vote was unanimous so far and I was loathed to change that. To be the outsider again. Besides, they were right. We had to do something, and if there was even a chance that an attack would work, we had to try it.

I tried to keep my voice steady as I answered. "I'm in."

"Alright. That makes it unanimous." He didn't exactly look pleased by that fact. In fact, he looked like he'd just eaten something moldy and was trying not to throw it up. "We'll do it this Friday."

I pulled my knees to my chest and hugged them closely, trying to convince myself that everything would be alright and not quite succeeding. The others seemed to be struggling with the same problem and after a few moments of silence we left, one by one.


	7. Chapter Seven

Memories

Chapter Seven

Jake found me in the library after school on Friday. I was getting ready to leave and paused while packing to mope over my English test. We'd received the results that morning. Unsurprisingly, I'd failed.

"Julie, there you are." Jake startled me when he came up behind me. I jumped a bit and shoved my Lit book into my bag along with the rest of my stuff.

"Hey Jake. What's up?"

He grabbed a chair from the neighboring table and pulled it closer so we could talk without being overheard; there was still a crowd of kids leaving the library.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

"I'm fine. Why?"

He shrugged. "Nothing. You just look a little down."

Avoiding the subject, I shrugged and exaggerated a heavy-lidded expression. "Well, what do you expect? I haven't slept a full night since, well, you know."

Jake looked away and let the subject drop. "Yeah. I guess that could get anyone a little down."

It wasn't a complete lie. I had been sleeping poorly. That and the weight of the secret I carried were starting to take their toll. But somehow I couldn't admit to Jake that it was already affecting more than just my mood. He had enough to worry about without me unloading my complaints on him.

"So, did you come out of your way here to ask me about that or did you have something else on your mind?"

"Did Cassie talk to you?"

"No. Should she have?"

He shook his head slowly. "I just thought she might have mentioned it. We've changed our plans for the theatre." He paused, as if to collect himself. "We're going tonight instead of tomorrow."

Conscious of the other students, I just nodded and tried to hide my surprise behind a mask of sleepiness. "Why?"

"It's going to be too crowded tomorrow."

I rolled my eyes. "I'm not in on the secret code, Jake. Just tell me."

He glanced around, making sure that no one was in earshot. And telling everyone with eyes that we didn't want to be overheard. "There's a group coming tomorrow morning to inspect the place. We thought it would be more...effective to attack tonight."

"And force them to make excuses to inspectors in the morning." I nodded in approval and stared at my hands, trying to think. "How'd you find out?"

Jake fidgeted very slightly. "Tobias found out. He's been keeping an eye on them during the day."

I nodded again, mind racing as I tried to think of what needed to be done to move our plans up a day. I started to ask another question and stopped mid-thought.

Jake didn't need me to help him fine-tune the plans. The fidgeting, the pauses, his whole nervous demeanor suddenly clicked into place. He'd had the whole thing planned out for a while, probably most of the day, and had put off telling me until the last moment.

That little bastard, keeping me out of something so important. It was my first real mission and I was rattled enough, but to learn that my comrade-in-arms didn't trust me enough to even tell me about-

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, trying to clear my thoughts. It _was_ my first mission. That fact alone provided enough angst for an army of pre-teens; there was no need to add even more drama.

Jake was watching me carefully when I opened my eyes again, so I did my best to hide my resentment. To keep up a cooperative, if slightly confused, pretense. "What do I need to do?"

Rather than spend more of my allowance on bus fare, I flew to Cassie's barn that night. I passed Jake and Marco on the way there and arrived early. Cassie didn't say anything about it when I climbed down from the loft; she simply lent me a pair of boots and put me to work moving wire cages.

When the boys arrived a few minutes later, Marco headed for a bale of hay but Jake came to help us stack cages. I pointedly ignored him, the slight from earlier that day still fresh on my mind.

In fact, I did too good a job ignoring him. I worked automatically, moving the cages from a haphazard pile to a neat pyramid but my mind turned inward and stewed over Jake's insult. The same way it had for most of the evening.

How dare they do this to me? How could they? I was willing to risk my life for this group, even if I hadn't had the chance to prove it quite yet. Didn't that count for something? And perhaps I hadn't been dealing with the secret as long as they had, but that didn't mean I wasn't already paying for it.

Well, who needs them? If they didn't want to include me in the group, then fine. After all, the whole point of the Animorphs was to save the world, not to make new friends. All I had to do was fight and avoid loosing my mind. I didn't need them.

I did my best to ignore that little voice in the back of my mind telling me that I was being ridiculous. That they were right to be mistrustful and that I was obsessing over something trivial to take my mind of the morphing we were about to do. That little voice might have been right, but I was in no mood to admit it.

"Ow! Watch what you're doing there, Julie."

"Oh. Sorry, Jake." Lost in my thoughts, I'd accidentally hit Jake with a cage.

Cassie gently took it from me and added it to the stack. "That's the last one. Thanks for your help."

A dismissal if ever I've heard one. Disgruntled but determined not to show it, I gave her a little smile and went to join Marco who was lounging on a bale of hay.

"What's up?" I asked, leaning against the wall and crossing my arms to keep them from shaking.

"Oh, nothing much. Just another Friday, you know? We often spend the weekends doing odd chores in someone else's barn."

I rolled my eyes at him and decided not to ask anymore obvious questions.

Marco sat up and faced me, sitting cross-legged on top of the bale. "Nervous?"

"Aren't you?"

He put on an expression of mock surprise. "Who me? Nervous? I am beyond nervous. I have turned paranoia into an art form. You are looking at the King of Fear. Can't you tell?"

"What should have been my first clue?"

"The bad jokes?" Jake offered from one corner of the barn where he was still helping Cassie clean up.

"No one asked you," he called back. "Would it make you feel better if I curled up in a little ball and cried?"

"No. It would probably scare me shitless."

"Well, good, because I wasn't going to. I don't think my manly pride could stand such a thing."

I laughed in spite of myself. "'Manly pride?' Who in this barn are you trying to impress?"

He paused for a split-second, then glanced over at the barn door. "Rachel, of course."

I turned to follow his gaze. Rachel was just walking in. Cassie saw her too and waved her over.

Marco leaned in close and lowered his voice like he was telling me some dark secret. "But, unfortunately, she's playing the lead role in the Anirmorphs version of Romeo and Juliet."

My eyes lit up at the mention of this bit of gossip. "And I gather you're not Romeo?"

He shook his head and sighed melodramatically. "Alas, no."

Which left Tobias and Ax. My money was on Tobias.

"I had no idea you were such a gossip-monger."

At that point, Jake and the others joined us, very business like. "Ax and Tobias should be getting here any minute. We'll leave as soon as they do."

"Great," I said, a bit too enthusiastically, my voice cracking a bit at the end.

Rachel gave me a look, but before anyone could say anything Tobias flew in the open loft door. -(Hey. Is everyone ready?)-

Jake nodded. "Let's go."

Marco took the opportunity to climb down from the bale of hay, leaning close to me as he did so. "Don't be nervous," he whispered.

The plan was simple. Get in, cause some damage, and get out before anyone has a chance to get hurt. It sounded safe enough, but the way the others were acting told me they expected something to go horribly wrong. And no matter how many times I told myself that it was just vandalism with a bit a morphing thrown in to make it interesting, I couldn't shake off that sense of foreshadowing.

It was full dark when we left. Late enough that I didn't even have to make excuses to Mom; I'd just gone to bed early. We traveled as owls, making a sweep of the neighborhood first to make sure everything was relatively quiet. On a Friday evening it's too much to ask that the area be deserted, but at least all the people were closer to the mall and out of our way. We landed behind the QuickStop one by one and demorphed, then remorphed and waited for Jake's command to attack.

We were a strange little zoo gathered there behind the gas station; a tiger, a grizzly, a gorilla, a wolf, and a Komodo. And one creature that would never be seen in a zoo; Ax in his Andalite form. Tobias had been convinced to morph into an owl in order to pull lookout duty.

-(Everyone ready?)- Jake asked.

Rachel shifted from one foot to the other, then dropped on all fours. -(This doesn't feel right, just attacking an empty building.)-

Jake glanced from the nearby theatre to his cousin, and unnaturally human gesture for a tiger. -(Yeah, well, let's get this over with.)-

-(Don't worry, Rachel,)- Marco put in. -(With our luck you'll probably get all the action you want.)-

Rachel growled and narrowed her eyes at him. -(That's not what I meant.)-

-(Enough,)- Jake cut them off before they could continue. -(Let's just do this.)- With that he took off toward the building and the rest of us had no choice but to follow.

The Komodo had poor eyesight and the sense of hearing was weak. They can't hear anything high or low pitched. It was like trying to listen with cotton balls stuffed in my ears. Not that there was anything interesting to listen to. But as soon as I flicked out my forked tongue and 'tasted' the air, none of that seemed to matter. I could sense everything around me, in details one can't get from sight or sound. I could taste the others, the remnants of their human selves from the station, the cat in the next alley over, the rain that was coming, even the people three blocks away at the mall. I could taste every nuance of heat, of moving flesh, of adrenaline and fear.

The others were scared. I tasted it. And they should be. I was the Komodo dragon. The top of my food chain. There was nothing that could take me on and survive. Not that it mattered at the moment. I wasn't hungry, so I was content to let them run away. In fact, the chill of the night air made me want find a nice burrow and sleep until morning. Then I'd wake up and find some nice patch of sunlight to-

-(Julie, come on. Get the lead out.)-

_Oh shit._ I snapped out of my complacent state, cursing myself for having fallen prey to an animal's instincts yet again.

Pushing the thought aside as something to obsess over later, I sprinted after the group, body shifting from side to side, belly and tail dragging the ground. Dragons are much faster than they look, so I caught up with the others by the time they reached the door. Rachel made short work of the flimsy lock and we streamed inside.

-(Alright,)- Marco cried with mock-glee, rubbing his gorilla palms together. -(Time to cause a little chaos.)-

Which is exactly what we proceeded to do, in a very clinical, methodical way. The lobby was full of stacks of material, unfinished projects, tools, furniture, and litter. Everyone separated, taking something and destroying it. Jake climbed the snack bar counter and entered the still-open ceiling, ripping out wires and clawing at support beams. Marco worked on the stacks of building materials, smashing stacks of tiles and using two-by-fours to demolish the walls. Cassie, Rachel, and Ax disappeared further into the building where the actual theatres were. And I headed for the offices.

At first I was stumped by the temporary walls. After a few moments of pacing in front of the door I couldn't open, I got an idea that would have made me grin if I'd had lips. Moving to the middle of the wall, where it was hopefully weaker, I stood on my hind legs using my tail for support and slammed all 200 pounds of my bulk into the obstacle. The wall, which was little better than an over-glorified cubicle separation, crashed inward, leaving the office exposed.

-(Interesting technique,)- Marco commented from across the room.

-(Flattery will get you nowhere,)- I told him. I moved into the office and clawed the chair to bits, then managed to drag the computer off the desk by its cords and destroyed that too.

We worked for about ten minutes, causing a mess that was mostly superficial. Rachel was right, though. Something about the whole project was off. I noticed how eerie it was, working with such efficiency on a mission that pretty much amounted to vandalism. We were fighting to save the world. So where was the fight?

-(They're here!)-

Rachel's almost jubilant cry startled me as I was about to attack the last standing wall. _Who are 'they?'_ But Marco and Jake seemed to have been waiting for just such a thing; they abandoned their projects and raced toward the others. I was just a second behind them.

'They' turned out to be a group of human Controllers, three of them each carrying a small sidearm and a panicked look. As we entered Rachel's grizzly threw one human across the theatre where he slammed into the far wall and fell out of sight behind a row of chairs. A second tried to shoot Cassie, but she dodged and leapt for his arm, sinking her teeth into it. He screamed and fell under her weight but she released him and used the momentum to run for the last remaining Controller.

Seeing the fate of her companions, the Controller turned and fled the way she'd come, through a door set in the floor where the screen would later be installed. Cassie was after her in a flash, Jake right on her heels. I hadn't even realized that Jake and Marco had entered the fight; I was still standing in the doorway watching everything happen.

Part of me considered staying where I was. After all, two of the enemy were out of action and the third was on the run. As I hesitated and Rachel tried to solve the problems that the narrow stairs presented, Ax entered the scene and nearly tripped over me.

-(Over there,)- I told him, heading for the front and acting as if I'd simply paused to collect myself. Ax ignored my statement of the obvious and stepped nimbly around me. My Komodo was nearly too big for the aisle left between the wall and stack of chairs waiting to be installed.

-(Out! Out!)- Jake screamed as he and Cassie reappeared. -(They're bringing backup. Is there anyway to block the door?)-

Marco was two steps ahead of him, dragging over a stack of construction material that had been piled on a tarp.

-(Everyone into the hall.)-

I was more than willing to follow that command, but I couldn't turn. My body was too wide. Too low to the ground. I turned down an isle, hoping to find a place to turn around, only to discover the stacks of chairs and material looked like a maze from my view so close to the ground. I finally managed to squeeze around a corner and make it back to the far wall, and therefore the door, about the time seven Hork-Bajir burst through the obstacle on the stage and the others escaped into the hall. I couldn't see the Hork-Bajir from where I was, but I could hear them and taste them.

Suddenly I saw what Jake was doing, escaping into the hall. There were seven Hork-Bajir, but they could only go through the door one at a time. He meant to force them into a bottle-neck at the exit and take them out one at a time. Well, certainly I could help with that. I was hidden along the only escape rout. And the Komodo is master of the ambush.

I fell deeper into the Komodo mind, telling it that the warm bodies it sensed were food. It took some work, as he still wasn't very hungry, but the instincts were all there. He knew how to hunt. The Komodo sensed them pause on the stage, then take off in single file line down the exit aisle.

The sight of my first Hork-Bajir would have shocked me if I weren't already deep in the mindset of the Komodo. Being top of a food chain will do that to a creature; make him completely fearless. As the last alien went by, I struck, sprinting out from my hiding place at an alarming speed and grabbing the creature's tail in my jaws. He went sprawling and I crawled on top of him, tearing anything I could find with my claws. He stopped screaming after my jaws found his throat. The sound of it didn't even bother me. It was the sound of a prey that knew he was lost. A sound the Komodo knew well.

I stopped my attack and stepped away from my prey, slightly winded from all the sudden activity. Feeding could wait until after a short rest. But not too short; others would smell the blood and come to join the feast.

-(Julie! Where are you?)-

Cassie's voice in my head snapped me out of whatever state I'd been in. I blinked, suddenly seeing the dead Hork-Bajir as just that: dead. Not prey, but a murdered creature. Killed. By me.

-(Julie!)-

There was no time to mourn. No time to think. No time to do anything but let the Komodo rule again. The Komodo wasn't bothered by the sounds and smells of death. By the carrion in the middle of the aisle. I poked and prodded that mind, keeping just enough of myself conscious to direct the attack, but hiding everything else behind those cold instincts. Just for now. Just long enough to see this through.

In the hall, the other Animorphs battled the remaining Hork-Bajir. Cassie was already missing a leg, Jake a tail. Ax was in the middle of everything, his tail flashing faster than my eye could follow.

_No time for that. Just have to fight. To hunt._

The nearest Hork-Bajir had his back to me, wrestling with Rachel's grizzly. I sprinted over and hooked him in the thigh, bringing him down to my level. He lashed out with clawed feet and elbow and wrist blades, but I ignored the cuts and went for the belly. The dragon's favorite attack. I missed as he twisted and clawed his back instead, but it had the same effect. His scream was cut short and he went limp. Rachel was already gone, fighting the last standing enemy.

Jake surveyed the damage, then cocked his head to one side, listening to something I couldn't hear. -(Everyone out. Back the way we came. Tobias? What's it look like outside?)-

-(You're clear for about three blocks. Head left when you get out. There's an ally just across the street.)-

We ran. We ran for our lives, but I was starting to slow down. Komodos are fast enough sprinters, but they're not made for long distance. We disappeared down the alley before the Controllers could regroup and come after us. We demorphed, morphed again to birds, and left before they could find us. And if anyone noticed six owls leaving from the same alley, they didn't say anything. They seemed more interested in things on the ground anyway.

The others were talking, joking away their post-battle jitters as I flew along in silence, not listening. Not trusting myself to speak.

-(Julie, how are you holding up?)-

I didn't really hear Cassie's question. The owl was another predator. Another set of cold, unfeeling instincts I could hide behind. I wanted to fly forever. To just keep flying until I found the edge of the earth and then to fly off that. But somewhere in the back of my mind I knew I'd have to demorph. Become human. Loose my defense against what I'd done.

-(Julie?)- Jake's tone was a bit more forceful.

-(What?)-

-(Are you okay?)-

-(Of course. Why wouldn't I be? I'm fine. Just fine.)-

Something in my 'voice' must have told them to back off, because they did.

-(Alright, guys, it's late. Everyone just go home. We'll meet up tomorrow.)-

Tobias, Ax, and Cassie split off toward the woods while Rachel and Marco headed back to their houses. But Jake and I lived next door to each other, and we couldn't risk someone noticing a pair of owl out on a midnight joy ride.

-(You go first,)- Jake offered. -(I'll fly around the neighborhood a bit more. Just to be safe.)-

It was the same suggestion I wanted to make. He just beat me to it. We were each about a block away from our houses, but in opposite directions. I landed on my roof first, then the back porch.

-(Hey Julie?)- Jake asked as I started to demorph.

-(Yeah?)-

-(You did well tonight.)-

-(Thanks.)-

-(I mean it. And I know how hard it is, after a battle. If you want someone to talk to...)-

My mouth had already formed so I couldn't answer him. I couldn't reassure him that I would be fine, that he didn't have to worry about anything, so I just finished demorphing and entered the house.

It wouldn't have been true. I was anything but fine. And I couldn't let him know.

A.N. For anyone wondering about Julie's 'attack' on the wall, it's something the Komodo really do during mating season. Male Komodo fighting for the attention of a female will stand on their hind legs and wrestle, the loser being the first one pinned to the ground.


	8. Chapter Eight

Andi tried several times to wake me on Saturday. I passed close to consciousness each time she ran into my room, turning on lights and opening the blinds and yelling for me to get up. But each time, just as I became aware enough to feel the dull ache of sore muscles, I decided it wasn't time to wake up yet and simply rolled over again. On her last, and finally successful, attempt she managed to pull me completely out of my bed. I fell and hit my head sharply on the floor, screeching in surprise.

"Ow! Andi, what are you doing?" My head started pounding and I decided I didn't really want to yell at my sister again.

"Come on, Julie. You're the last one up. _Again_."

My mind was still groggy, so it took a few moments to process what she was saying. Something tickled at the back of my mind. Something important, but that I didn't want to remember. "It's Saturday," I mumbled slowly. "Why do I have to get up at all?"

"We're going to the zoo." When I just looked up at her blankly, still sitting on the floor, she threw up her hands and sighed dramatically. "I told you last week, remember? We're all going to the zoo. Mom even made it into one our 'family outings,' so you can't back out."

I groaned and held my throbbing head in my hands. I wondered briefly why my head ached. Why my whole body ached. It was unusual for me to be sore; I spent most of my time sitting at my computer.

Morphing. I was sore from all the morphing we'd done the previous night. As soon as I realized that, images of the battle flooded into my mind, making me even sorrier that I'd bothered to get up.

Andi took the pillow off my bed and batted me lightly on the head with it. "Come on. We're not all that-"

"Cut it out, Andi," I snapped, grabbing the pillow away from her. I was still sitting on the floor where I'd fallen; I clutched the pillow and pulled up my knees, curling around it. "Just leave me alone."

Surprised by my sudden outburst, Andi just stood there and looked at me.

"I mean it. Get out!" Screaming just made my head hurt more, so I buried my face in the pillow, not bothering to see if she left or not. A few seconds later I heard my door close, but I wasn't really thinking about that. My mind was focused on thoughts of the previous night.

I could picture the two Hork-Bajir I'd killed. Most of the rest of the evening was a blur. The events had happened so fast that the timing in my memory was distorted, the sequence confused. Actions that I knew must have taken a few seconds seemed burned into my memory as having lasted hours, while others were passed over without a second thought. I remembered my claws descending on the second Hork-Bajir, ready to gut him, and in my mind's eye those claws took forever to hit. I remembered Jake disappearing through the trap door, but that must have happened first. No, before that we were in the lobby, vandalizing the place. And then the attack, and the battle, and the killing. I'd called the first one carrion. Just to ease my own conscience. A living, breathing, sentient creature was not road-kill, no matter how I felt. I'd wanted to feed on him. Or her. The thought made me nauseous.

I clutched the pillow tighter to my mid-section and rocked back and forth, swallowing to keep the bile down as image after image entered my mind, each one more distorted than the last. Tearing out that creature's throat must have taken less than a second. So why did I see it in such perfect detail, again and again, in slow motion?

And now they wanted me to go to the zoo? To stand by and watch the very Komodo I'd morphed the night before laze about in the morning sun? To act as if nothing were wrong? I couldn't do it. I couldn't. Not to keep my family ignorant and therefore safe. Not even to save the world. It simply wasn't going to happen.

Someone knocked softly on my door and then entered when I didn't answer. I didn't look up, but I could tell it was Mom when she sat on the bed and put a comforting hand on my shoulder. I didn't quite trust myself to talk, afraid that I might throw up or cry. Or both.

"Are you okay honey?"

I shook my head, still not willing to look up. Thoughts and images raced though my head. I must have been an emotional battleground. Not that I can remember anything other than what I thought. I thought about the battle. I thought about my mother. About my sister and brother and father. About what would happen to all of them if I failed, as it seemed I was destined to do. And the more I thought the more my stomach turned, trying to get rid of whatever I'd eaten the day before.

Mom rubbed my back gently, obviously worried. "Honey, what's wrong?"

I opened my mouth, ready to tell her some lie about a bad dream and being tired, that I'd be fine after I woke up and moved around a bit, but what came out instead was, "I'm going to be sick."

I lurched out of my sitting position and reached for the trashcan beside my desk. I didn't quite make it and about half of what came up made a lovely mess on my carpet.

I clutched the trashcan much as I had the pillow while Mom held my hair back. Dry heaves kept my there long after my stomach was empty until, at last, I calmed down enough to stop the physical reaction. Mom babbled on and on about how I was sick and shouldn't be staying up so late and how I should take better care of myself and that she was going to get me some water and would I be okay for a few moments?

I listened without really hearing her and nodded at all the right times and moved to my bed as soon as she was gone, far too exhausted to even think too much about the battle. Though a few images were still burned into my mind, it seemed that after the initial shock they didn't want to torment me quite so violently.

Mom brought my water and tucked me back into bed, telling me to stay there. Dad came in and helped clean the carpet while they talked about what to do. When I realized they were considering canceling the trip to stay home with me, I perked up enough to talk them out of it. The last thing I wanted was my family hovering over me all day. It took about ten solid minutes of telling them I'd be fine to convince them, but they finally left and I drifted back to sleep.

The phone woke me. I heard it ringing, but decided to ignore it. After a few rings it kicked over to the machine but the person called right back. By the third call I decided I should get up and see who wanted to contact me so desperately.

It was Jake.

"Hey Julie. What are you doing?"

"I _was_ sleeping," I answered shortly. Yawning, clutching a blanket around me with one hand and the phone in the other, I made my way from the kitchen to the living room. "What do you want?"

"I just wanted to see if you wanted to get together today."

"Stuff it, Jake. Tom's not there or you wouldn't have called three times in a row."

He paused and I couldn't tell if he was angry or not by my attitude. I realized belatedly that it didn't really matter if Tom were there or not, that speaking freely over an unsecured line was risky, but I didn't apologize.

"We're meeting up with Cassie around two. You can come if you like." And then he hung up without saying goodbye.

Again, I couldn't tell if he was angry, disappointed, or just tired. I sighed, thinking that he was much easier to deal with in person when I could gauge his mood.

I leaned my head back on the couch and closed my eyes and sighed again. The last thing I wanted to do was face the others and talk about the battle, but I couldn't really see any way out of it. Besides just blowing them off and staying home. The idea was a bit tempting, but I just shook my head and scolded myself for thinking it. The situation was already bad enough; there was no reason to go and make it worse by acting like even more of a coward.

I stared at the phone and hugged my blanket closer to me. Would coward really be such a bad thing? Especially if 'brave' made you wake up sick every morning. But I had been sick that morning and I was starving. I decided to eat lunch and worry about being a coward later. It wasn't an issue I was likely to forget if I took a few minutes to eat first.

I opted for simplicity and made Spagettioes. As I watched the bowl turn round and round through the door of the microwave, my mind wandered back to the battle. Back to the two creatures I'd killed. Back to the fight. To the way Jake and Marco jumped right into the battle while I was stuck at the door just watching. Just watching. The way they'd run to the battle from the lobby. Rachel's cry. _They're here._

It hit me. I guess it should have been obvious before. I guess it shouldn't have been too big a deal. But I still hadn't realized it until that moment. They were expecting a fight. I went into that theatre expecting to do some damage to the building, but not much else. Sure, I knew it was dangerous. The same way you know sneaking out at night is dangerous because your parents could come in at any minuet and find you gone. Worse, sure, but it was the same kind of worry. I might have known that our mission could have turned into a battle, but somehow it just didn't figure into my thinking.

But it did for them. They knew, before we ever set foot, paw, or claw in that theatre that it would turn into a fight. They expected it. They were waiting for it. They were prepared for it. Because they were used to it. They were experienced. And I wasn't.

They had to have known I wouldn't have expected it. As far as I knew we were going into a relatively safe mission. They hadn't warned me. They'd thrown me into my first life-or-death fight with no warning at all!

I fumed, staring at the microwave long after it was done cooking. It took me a while to realize the thing was beeping at me. I was so distracted by my thoughts that I burned my hands on the bowl, spilled some on the floor, and barked my shins against the kitchen table. I didn't care. I wasn't even hungry anymore, but I knew I needed something after that morning so I ate it anyway.

My family returned as I was cleaning up and Mom immediately started fussing over me. I told her I was fine, just a bit tired, but she gave me a disbelieving look. You'd think, being a nurse, she'd be able to tell a healthy person from a sick one. I guess she's seen so much of the latter group, however, that it's made her paranoid.

"Are you sure you're okay, sweetie?" She asked again.

"I'm fine, Mom. It must have just been something I ate."

I started to leave the kitchen, but she caught me as I passed and pressed her cheek against my forehead, then kissed me. "Well, you don't feel like you have a temperature."

"Because I don't. I'm perfectly fine. Let go."

Something in my voice must have been too harsh or too angry because she released me but continued to give me a concerned look. I ignored her and stalked into the living room, throwing myself down on the couch.

Andi came and sat by my head, where there was still some room. "You should have come. It's was great. There was this snake handler guy at the reptile house that was letting everyone play with the snakes."

I grunted and reached for the remote.

"Hey, what's with you?"

"I'm sick, okay? Just leave me alone."

"But you just said you were fine."

"Then I'm sick of you," I snapped and threw the remote back on the coffee table without turning on the TV. Before she could say anything I jumped up off the couch and stormed up the stairs and into my room.

One there I fell onto my bed and grabbed a pillow, taking what comfort I could from hugging it. I had to get out of the house, now that my family was back in it. I couldn't stay and let them become even more suspicious, because I really couldn't stay and act like everything was normal. Suddenly going to the meeting and being with people who knew what I was going through didn't seem like such a bad idea.

I checked the clock on my bedside table. One-thirty. If I left right away I could catch the bus and make it on time. I changed quickly, grabbed Jake's library books, and ran back down the stairs.

"Mom, I'm going out!"

"Oh, no you're not."

I stopped with my hand on the door. Mom never stopped me from going out; what was wrong this time?

"Why not?"

She came out of the kitchen, where she'd been yelling from, with a very motherly look on her face. A look that was somewhere between angry, concerned, 'what the hell do you think you're doing?'

"'Why not?' You're ill! You need to stay home and rest."

I sighed. On any other day, especially a school day, I would have loved this attitude in her. But I had my excuse ready. "I won't be gone long, I promise. I've just got to take Jake's books back the library. They're already over-due." I jiggled my arm-load of books to bring her attention to them.

She just held out her hands. "I'll take them."

I was not to be deterred. I put on a slightly pleading look, careful not to overdo it. "Please, Mom?" Luckily, it wasn't uncommon in our family for me to take books back to the library, if only so I'd have an excuse to go and browse the fiction section.

She glared at me. In a very loving way.

"I'm feeling much better, I promise. And I won't stay out long."

"Okay," she relented. "But be home in an hour."

"Two."

"An hour," she repeated in a very firm voice.

I knew better than to press the matter. But I still made sure to act disappointed. "Fine," I grumbled, and disappeared out the door.

Taking the books along as an excuse meant I really had to return them to the library and run in to check out a book. I grabbed the first thing off the New Releases shelf and ran back to the bus station, but I was still late getting to Cassie's house.

I bypassed the house and went straight to the barn. Everyone but Ax was gathered there and they all looked up when I entered, slightly out of breath.

"Sorry I'm late, but I can only stay for an hour 'cuase Mom thinks I went to the library," I explained in a rush.

Jake just nodded, looking slightly surprised. Like he hadn't quite expected me to show up. I remembered my anger from earlier that day but firmly reminded myself that I wasn't allowed to blow up at Jake. My family was one thing, and it was bad enough to get mad at them, but these people had my life in their hands. Whether I knew it or not.

Marco scooted over as if to make room for me on the bale of hay, even though there were three bales sitting next to each other and plenty of room. But it was a nice gesture, meant to make me feel more welcome, so I sat next to him without commenting.

"So," I said after I'd settled down. They were all looking at me like I'd interrupted something and they were waiting for me to leave so they could get on with talking about it. I guess, on some level, it was true.

"So," Jake agreed. Then he cleared is throat. "We were talking about last night."

"Do we already know what happened?"

"Sort of. They managed to get a bunch of the building cleaned up and blamed the rest on vandals this morning."

"But they still failed the inspection," Rachel put in.

Jake just shook his head. "That won't stop them."

"Did we really expect it to?" I asked. "I thought last night was just a bluff. A scare tactic."

"It was," Marco said. "And they're going to call our bluff. They don't think there's anything we can really do. They're probably right."

We were quiet for a moment until I remembered something. "Hey, if they did fail that inspection, maybe they'll loose some investors."

The others just looked at me.

"What? The Yeerks aren't funding this thing on their own, are they?"

Jake shrugged. It was obvious none of them had thought about it before. "I'm sure they could be if they wanted."

Now that I was thinking about it, an idea was forming in my head. I still had no idea how to it would work, but if there were some way make them loose monetary support, maybe we could get them to shut down. Money makes the world go round, after all. The Yeerks couldn't change that just yet.

But Jake pressed on before I could say anything. "Look, there may still be a way to do this. Last night..." He glanced at Cassie, who just nodded. She knew what he was about to propose, but she didn't look happy about it. "Last night when we were under the theater, we noticed something."

"It's unfinished," Cassie continued. "There's just a big open space with a few supports."

"Hold on," Marco cut in. "Are you about to suggest that we collapse the building?"

"Al right." Rachel looked positively ecstatic at the idea. Even I perked up a bit. It was a much better idea than our last one, which was just cause and mess, cross our fingers, and hope.

"Basically," Jake answered Marco.

"While we're still under it?"

Jake shrugged again. "Well, we haven't worked out all the details yet."

"We'll get crushed! Squished. Splat. Ku-put, no more Animorphs. How are we supposed to survive dropping a building on our own heads?" He paused, as if waiting for an answer, but pressed on before anyone could say anything. "And for that matter, how do you propose we do this? Up to standard or not, if those supports can keep the building up, how are we going to knock them down with something that can still fit through that trap-door?"

At this, I swear, Jake actually grinned. "I thought we'd use the bulldozers."

Marco stopped midway through preparing his next rant. "They have bulldozers?"

"Little ones. And earthmovers and trucks and forklifts and just about anything else you could want."

Marco thought about this for a moment. A grin to match Jake's appeared on his face. "Well, maybe we could make this work."

I could see the entire group become more excited the more the idea was thrown around.

"Just for the record, though, I still think this is insane."


	9. Chapter Nine

Memories

Chapter Nine

I left the meeting early but got home late. Mom grounded me for a week. No matter how I ranted and raved and begged and argued, she wouldn't relent and the fight only stopped when she threatened to make it longer.

It was a fairly extreme punishment, but Mom had been acting oddly lately. An overprotectiveness that I didn't quite understand. One that probably wasn't help by that morning's illness.

I stormed up to my room with my library book and threw myself on the bed; a display which did nothing for my sick charade but I didn't much care. After a few minutes of pouting, I gave in the inevitable and took stock of the situation. No TV, no, phone and no going out. I grinned a bit maliciously when I looked at my computer. Mom always forgot to ground me from that.

No Animorphs. Being grounded meant I couldn't go out on the next mission to the theater. Not unless they meant to put it off for a week. For a few moments, I wondered if this was really such a bad thing. If maybe I'd found the perfect excuse to legitimately avoid going out with them again. But no, I shook my head and scolded myself for being silly. I'd have to go; being grounded was easy enough to get around. Besides, once the week was up I'd be 'free' again and I couldn't spend the entire war grounded in my room.

But I was still grounded and I'd have to tell Jake. Going to my computer, my one source of communication with the outside world, I sent him an e-mail telling him what had happened. Checking myself just before I hit the send button, I reread the message and deleted references to the Animorphs or the theater. Fear and paranoia were easy enough, but I was finding that caution took a bit of practice.

Jake didn't respond until later that evening. Unlike me, he did not live on his computer. I'd spent the day in my room, watching my computer and waiting for the window to pop up and tell me I had new mail. By the time it did come, I was ready to jump on Jake for keeping me waiting all day.

_Meet me outside. Back porch_, was all it said.

I scowled at the screen before deleting the message, but was careful to keep up a blank expression before going downstairs. In the kitchen I stopped at the freezer and grabbed an ice cream bar before wandering outside, as if I had no other intent besides sitting on my porch and eating ice cream while watching the twilight.

Jake was already there, sitting on the bottom step and waiting for me.

"Hey," I said as I sat next to him.

"You didn't bring one for me?" he asked, looking at the ice cream.

"Get one yourself. They're in the freezer."

He shrugged, but made no move to get up.

"So what did you guys decide?"

He didn't answer for a minute. Then, while staring at the tree, said, "We're going in tonight."

I wasn't quite sure how to respond to that so I stayed quiet, eating my ice cream. Tonight? Not that I could really blame them for wanting to get it done as soon as possible. But tonight? I wasn't quite sure if I could handle another mission so soon and was on the brink of saying as much to Jake.

"Are you okay with that? You don't have to go."

"No, no. I'm fine. I'll go. When?"

I called myself a million kinds of idiot while Jake gave me his infuriating, patronizing, concerned look. I don't know why I agreed to go. Perhaps it was Jake's hint that I couldn't keep up with him and the others. Or perhaps it was some obscure sense of duty. Perhaps I was just looking for Jake's approval, the same way I looked for Marco's.

"We were going to go late. Around Eleven. So everyone could sneak out after going to bed. But we can push it back later, if you need to."

"Why would I need it to be later?"

"You're going to have to go to Cassie's first and get a morph. The rest of us did it this afternoon after you left."

I glared at him, but it didn't seem to faze him. "What else did you do after I left?"

"We made plans. Did you want us to wait for you?"

"Don't mock me, Jake," I warned him in a low voice. Again, Jake wasn't intimidated. I guess compared to battling invading aliens I wasn't much of a threat.

We sat that way for a while; me glaring at him and him giving me a stern, slightly bored look. Like he could see right through me and was just waiting for me to realize it. It didn't take long. I backed down and lowered my gaze to the melting ice cream bar in my hands.

"So, what's the plan?"

He told me. It was brutally short and simple. And yet, if we could pull it off, it would also be brutally effective. But first we all needed the new morph. There were several animals that could have done the job, but they choose a raccoon for the simple reason of Cassie had one in the barn. It's odd how in a war the most destructive elements can be so horrifyingly simple.

I agreed to meet Cassie just before the mission and Jake said he would call her. He stood to leave, but before he did he looked back down on me, still sitting on the porch. "Are you sure you want to do this? The others will understand if you don't come."

I blushed, but not from embarrassment. It sounded like Jake was trying to give me an excuse to stay home that night, rather than go on the mission. Like he didn't want me to come, and was doing everything to get rid of me except say it outright.

"I'll see you at the theatre," I said as an answer and stood and walked in the house before he could reply.

---------

Everything before the mission went off without a hitch. Jake sent me another e-mail telling me to fly to Cassie's house, that she would be waiting for me. I told Mom I was going to bed, put on my pajamas over my swimsuit, and pretended to sleep until Mom had checked on me twice. I knew after that she'd leave me alone, so I opened the window as quietly as I could and flew away. I considered stuffing my pillows under the covers like in the movies, but decided against it. It was just too cliché.

I acquired the raccoon and we flew to the theater where the others were already waiting.

"Ready?" Jake asked as soon as we'd demorphed.

"No," I answered immediately. "Are you?"

Marco laughed shortly from where he was leaning against a wall, absently rearranging the gravel with his feet. "No one's ever ready. To be really 'ready' for something like this you'd have to be suicidal." He glanced at Rachel. "Or possibly Rachel. But she's special."

"Stuff it, Marco."

Marco just grinned at her, but his heart wasn't into the teasing. They seemed to just be going through the motions of something out of habit. As if they were used to making jokes before a battle and did it just to bring a sense of normalcy to what must usually amount to a suicide mission.

Jake just rolled his eyes and said, "Let's go."

We did. We morphed, the others having to wait a few extra seconds for me to finish, and set off for the theater as seven scurrying raccoons. I briefly wondered how we'd get in, but I was the only one. Without an order that I could hear, one of the lead raccoons, Jake or Tobias, lead us around the building to an open window. Either Tobias had seen it and knew it would be open or someone had made sure it would be open for tonight. Either way I hadn't known about it; just one more example of how I was excluded from the group.

One by one we entered the building and made our way down to the theater room. We couldn't risk going all at once for fear of being seen. One raccoon is easier to hide than seven. Fortunately, the theater was in a busy enough area that the Yeerks couldn't risk overrunning the place with armed guards either.

Jake was the last to arrive, just after me. We stood around the open trap door which had apparently been forced open by something much larger than a raccoon. Since Rachel had been the first to arrive, there was really no point in asking how that had happened.

(Everyone here?)

Marco waved one little paw in the air. (Present!)

I, being closest to him, tried to smack him but missed. (Shut up, Marco. Let's just get this over with.)

We filed down the stairs and gathered at the bottom, taking stock of our surroundings. Like the theater upstairs, the Pool entrance was clearly unfinished. The cavern like area was roughly the same size as the building above, but the walls were rough and slanted in odd directions. The tunnel leading to the Pool was narrower than I'd expected, just wide enough to fit a large truck. Or a very small earthmover. There were about half a dozen vehicles, earthmover, forklift, small bulldozers, and a pickup truck, all grouped in one corner that looked more finished than the others. The dirt walls there were strait and reinforced to prevent erosion.

And best of all, just like Cassie had said, the supports keeping up the ceiling were thin and shaky at best. One good knock from a vehicle would bring them crashing down.

One thing we didn't count on, however, were the guards. Unlike the theater, there was no need to keep up appearances down here and there were five or six armed humans sitting on the vehicles playing cards. I guessed that they were supposed to be patrolling, but guard duty must have gotten boring. They were more interested in the current hand than in the group of raccoons gathered at the bottom of the stairs.

(We need a distraction,) Jake said. (Rachel?)

(Got it.)

And before I could even wonder what was going on or why Jake had singled out Rachel, she had turned and disappeared up the stairs.

(Come on,) he said to the rest of us. (Let's get away from the stairs.)

We moved in a line, one behind the other, along the wall until we reached the opposite corner and waited there.

(Price Jake, they are sure to send more reinforcement from the pool. We'll have to act quickly.)

(I know,) Jake replied grimly.

(We had a few minutes last time,) Marco put in. (It must take about that long for them to get up the tunnel. It should be long enough, if we hurry.)

Suddenly we heard the roar of a grizzly coming from the theater. The noise made the raccoon, which had been complacent until that point, try to run and hide but there was no where to go. All six of the guards dropped their cards and ran for the stairs, weapons at the ready.

(Let's go,) Jake called even before they were completely gone.

We ran for the little group of vehicles, splitting into three groups as we went. Ax, Marco, and Cassie each picked a vehicle and started hotwiring it to start the engine. I didn't even pause to wonder how they'd picked up such a skill. Jake discovered the comically small earthmover didn't need a key and started it up on his own before the other three were finished. Tobias joined Ax in his forklift and I joined Marco in the truck.

(Can you drive?)

(Sort of.)

(Close enough. Get ready.) The engine roared to life and Marco, who had been under the steering wheel, took control of the petals. I sat in the diver's seat and struggled to put it in gear. It slipped into reverse and we started rolling back into Cassie.

(Brake! Brake!)

Marco sat on the brake and we stopped. I wrestled the truck into first gear and Marco eased off the brake slowly so that we idled forward a bit.

(Which one's our target?) I asked as I sat up to control the wheel. My paws couldn't really grip it very well so I had to lean on it with all my weight to make it turn.

(Third one back, on the left.)

Giving Marco directions, I managed to get the truck pointed at the right support and we stopped, waiting for the others. Soon everyone was in place and Jake gave the order.

(Rachel, get out NOW!) he screamed. (Everyone else, GO!)

We were just in time. More than a dozen humans and Hork-Bajir burst out of the tunnel just as everyone leaned on their respective gas pedals and rammed into their assigned support beams. They snapped like tree limbs on collision. Marco and I tore out of the open driver's side door and ran for the far wall, reaching safety just as the ceiling started to cave in and bury the Controllers.

We'd planned it so that only about three-fourths of the building collapsed, so that we'd have enough room to avoid getting killed, but the remaining supports gave under the pressure of holding up the building alone. Only the last row remained standing, bowed in the middle to a dangerous degree and leaving us a very small safety zone near the wall. By some miracle, all six of us made it to wall in time, though Tobias was hit hard by a falling piece of ceiling.

(Everyone okay?) Jake asked, looking around to make sure. (Rachel?) he called louder. (Did you make it out?)

(Yeah, Jake. I'm fine. Hurry up and get out, before people start to notice.)

The underground room was filled with debris, a confusing pile of rubble shrouded in dust kicked up by the collapse. I half expected to hear moans from those buried in the collapse, but all I could hear was creaking wood and secondary collapses. Fortunately, the room was deep enough to have taken everything upstairs and we could see the night sky in the gap between the remaining ceiling and the top of the rubble.

Like the night before, we ran. Ran as if the devil himself was after us. Rachel was already outside and waiting for us, our left-over clothes in her arms. Together, we ran and hid in the same alley as the night before. Since it was a Sunday, there weren't many people around and no one followed us out of the ruined theatre. I tried to glance back at it as I ran but wasn't coordinated enough. But I kept listening for the sounds of pursuers behind us; the theatre remained eerily quiet.

We demorphed in the alley and Jake, Rachel and Marco changed into their clothes.

"We did it!" Marco said, barely able to keep his voice under a shout. He was looking around with a huge grin on his face. "We really did it! We pulled it off."

The others were starting to catch his giddy enthusiasm, but Jake at least remembered his job as a leader before giving in to celebration. "Is everyone okay? Tobias?"

Tobias flapped his way to the top of a dumpster and shook his wings to make them lay flat. (Yeah, I'm fine. Head's too hard to get hurt.)

Everyone just stood around grinning for a few moments before Jake finally shrugged, attempted to cover his grin with a serious expression, and said, "It's late. Let's go home."

I peaked around the corner of the alley entrance at the ruined building and Marco tapped me on the shoulder. "What's wrong, Julie?"

"Nothing. Nothing."

He grinned even wider, which I hadn't thought possible. "Come on, smile. We accomplished a mission for once. Do you know how rare this is?"

I managed a weak smile for him, but he was too excited to notice my heart wasn't in it. He just gave me an awkward one-armed hug and went back to putting his shoes on.

"Marco, you ready?" Jake was waiting just outside the alley with Rachel, throwing nervous glances at the theater. But still smiling like, well, like someone who had just survived a near-death experience.

As Marco walked away from me, Cassie called my attention to her.

"Come on, Julie. Let's go home."


	10. Chapter Ten

Memories

Chapter Ten

I woke screaming on Monday morning. Rather than stop as soon I realized I was awake, like one normally does with a nightmare, I kept screaming. The noise went on and on and I couldn't stop myself. I covered my face with my pillow and screamed into that, but it didn't do much to muffle the sound.

Andi came running into my room after a few seconds. I was vaguely aware of someone shaking me and yelling at me, but I didn't stop until she snatched my pillow away and slapped me across the face.

"Are you okay?" she asked after I'd stopped.

I didn't answer her. I just sat there in my sweat-soaked sheets, gasping for breath and holding my cheek. Just sat there, staring at my bedroom wall.

"Julie!" She grabbed my shoulder and shook me again. "Julie? What's wrong?"

By this point Alex and Mom were in my room as well, both looking concerned. I stared at the three of them for a moment, not quite able to focus, not quite able to process what was going on. I remembered screaming. Nightmare. Animorphs.

I tried. I tried to calm down and tell my mother that it was just a nightmare, that I'd be fine if I just got up and did normal things, that she shouldn't worry about me. But as soon as I opened my mouth to tell these half-truths I found I couldn't say anything. I grabbed Andi, who was still sitting on my bed, and cried into her shoulder.

I did that for a long time. Just disappeared into that shoulder and tried to block everything out as she awkwardly patted my back, unsure of what to do. I knew, even as I did it, that it was the wrong thing to do. That I had to get a hold of myself or Mom would get suspicious. And too much suspicion from anyone, even my mother, would compromise the Animorphs. I couldn't do that. But I couldn't stop.

Mom sat on the other side of me, pulled me off Andi and onto her shoulder, and motioned for the twins to leave.

"What's wrong, honey?"

With nothing convincing to tell her, I didn't answer. I just continued to sob. But she was patient and sat there holding me.

I tried to think. Tried to use my fit to buy time and figure out what to tell her. But I couldn't think about anything but that awful dream. Thinking back, it didn't seem very bad. I'd been in the theater, and every screen was showing a movie. But the volume was turned up to an unbearable level and every screen was showing scenes of fights. I ran from one room to another, from WWII to Korea to gang wars to bar fights to massacres in Africa to the Animorphs. Yelling for quiet the whole time, but no one was there to listen to me. And in the last room, the one showing the Animorphs fighting, the screen went blank and the resulting silence was more overbearing that the noise had been. There was not a single sound. Not a creak or sigh of the building. Not the wind. Not the buzz of the lights. Nothing. I tried to call for someone but couldn't make my voice work. I kept calling and calling and then screaming and screaming until I woke up screaming.

But now I was awake and Mom was next to me, asking again what was wrong. And I couldn't think of what to tell her. 'Don't worry, Mom, it's just left over from all the fighting I've done this weekend. Alien invaders and all. You know.'

I did, finally, manage to calm down enough to stop crying.

"Are you okay now, honey?"

"Yeah, Mom," I told her, wiping my face with a corner of my t-shirt. "I just…Bad dream…"

"What was it about?"

_Silence, Mom._ _I'm afraid of that silent pile of rubble._ But I couldn't say so. I made a show of trying to remember the dream and then told her, "I don't remember. I…I just remember I was trying to find someone and couldn't call them."

I didn't want her to ask anymore questions, to pull some amateur analyst thing, so I turned my head into her shoulder again. I didn't dare start crying again, for fear that I wouldn't be able to stop, but she seemed to get the message.

She stood and kissed my forehead. "Come on downstairs. Your dad made pancakes; you'll feel better after some breakfast."

Breakfast didn't help. Neither did a shower. In fact, none of my normal activities made me feel more like myself that morning. I didn't have nightmares often enough to have any 'nightmare remedies' handy. My family was obviously worried about me by the time we ready to leave for school. I jumped at every noise and snapped at everyone who tried to talk to me. But I couldn't be left alone; the silence drove me to seek out company. I didn't know if school would be better or worse, but I had no choice about going.

Mom dropped me off at school, rather than let me walk as I normally did. If I'd thought about it, I would have argued against it but I didn't. Once out of the car, I hovered at the edge of the crowd. The ambient noise was fine but I couldn't quite bring myself join the other students. I stood there outside the front door, waiting for the crowd to thin out, until I'd lost track of what I was doing and stared off into space.

The tardy bell rang right beside me and I jumped and gave a high-pitched scream. From behind me came the sound of dropped books.

"Jeeze. Could you give a guy a little warning?"

Blushing furiously, I turned to see Marco, his open backpack hanging on one arm while he rubbed his ear in an overdramatic gesture with the other hand. His books and papers were strewn across the ground.

"Oh. Uh, sorry."

I bent quickly to help him gather his things so that he wouldn't get a good look at me. Though I'm not sure what it was I didn't want him to see. "Um, guess I was just spacing out there or something. And that damn bell…" I trailed off as I gathered his escaped pencils, figuring that sounding lame was better than rambling. We straitened at the same time. "Um, here." I held out the handful of pencils and turned to leave, but Marco grabbed my hand instead of the pencils and didn't let go when I jerked at his touch.

"Hey, what's wrong?"

I'll never know how he knew. If maybe there were some tear-stains or some other expression on my face or if he just guessed. And anyway it didn't matter. With anyone else I would have shrugged off the grip and answered 'nothing' but it was Marco. He looked at me, not with concern or sympathy or any other soft emotion, but with a clear understanding that he wouldn't accept any bullshit from me. I wouldn't be able to slip by him with any excuse or brush-off, even if I could come up with one that was decently well-crafted.

Nor could I tell him any of what was really bothering me in the middle of the school entrance with late students and observant teachers rushing past us. Still holding onto my hand, Marco pulled me into the school and down the hall to the nearest boy's room. Over my weak protest he pulled me inside and leaned against the door to stop anyone from entering behind us.

"Now tell me what's wrong. Is it about last night?"

I wrapped my arms around my torso and glanced around the semi-clean bathroom. It was quiet, with a slight echo that bounced back his voice and our footsteps. A noise that reminded me of the eerie almost-silence of the night before.

"Hey, Julie." He reached forward to grab my shoulders and shake me out of whatever state I'd been in. "Hey, over here. Look at me."

I did. I looked at Marco. Brown hair, still in need of a haircut. Brown eyes that were level with my own. I focused on that, on his eyes, to block out the phantom noises from the night before and the memories they brought with them. But I still couldn't say anything. Couldn't quite articulate and answer to the question 'what's wrong?'

"Did you have a nightmare?"

God bless Marco, he was giving me my answers and saving me from saying them. Better yet, he had some idea of what was going on. I nodded, still fixated on his eyes.

"Bad morning? Jumpy?"

Nod. Nod.

But he didn't say what I was half-expecting him to say. 'Don't worry. It's normal. Happens after every mission.' Only, how could my behavior be normal? None of the others screamed at tardy bells. Normal for a first mission maybe? Maybe?

I stared at Marco and waited for him to give me an out, an excuse, a rational for my behavior. To tell me I could blame the mission because everyone else did the same thing. Instead he dropped his gaze to the floor and let go of my shoulders. With a heavy sigh he leaned against the door again.

"Can you make it through school?"

School? With people talking and yelling at me and study hours of scratchy, not-quite-silence? With questions and people and more of this 'what's wrong?' nonsense? Could I make it through school? And yet…

"I'll have to. It's not like I have a choice."

Even I could hear the strain in my voice, like I was about to break down in tears. Which, truth be told, I was. But my answer seemed to please Marco. He softened just a bit.

"Hey, come on. We won last night, didn't we?"

I grinned because I knew it was expected, not because I was pleased by the memory of that quiet pile of rubble and those buried beneath it. "Yeah, we did win."

I thought, maybe I should be happier about our small victory. At the very least it did mean we wouldn't have to go back to the theater.

Marco grinned at me. "This gig isn't all bad, but you have to savor the victories when they come."

Just then someone pushed on the door. Marco was still leaning against it, keeping the person out, but not for long. "What the hell? Let me in! I gotta go." The other guy was bigger and shoved the door hard.

Marco lurched forward, grabbed me around the waist, and spun us around so he was facing the door and I had my back to it. When the other guy looked around the edge of the door to see what the deal was, he saw Marco look up from my neck with an expression that said 'Do you mind?' The fact that I'd clung Marco out of surprise and we were still uncomfortably close together gave the guy all he needed to jump to the wrong conclusion.

"Oh. Sorry," was all he said before he left.

We stayed that way until we heard him walk away and then I tried to take a step backward. Marco didn't release me.

"Let me go, Marco."

Instead of that, he readjusted his grip to be less aggressive and grinned. "Hey, why don't we play hookey today?"

"What?"

"Why not? We're already late for first period, so there's really not much point in going now. Let's just leave. We can go up to the roof and go flying."

The idea was so impossibly tempting. I sighed, knowing I was defeated, and put my forehead on his shoulder. "You do this all the time, don't you?"

"Yup. Now come on." He let go of my waist and grabbed one hand to lead me out of the bathroom.

---------

((bad punch-line here))

I groaned. (Marco, that's worse than the last one. Don't you know any good jokes?)

(What do you mean 'good jokes'? That is a good joke. I always get laughs with that one.)

(From who?)

(My adoring female fans.)

(Marco, you're grandma doesn't count.)

(Ouch. Next time I'll just go flying with someone who enjoys my company.)

(I didn't know your grandmother could morph.)

We were flying over the edge of town near the beach, a few hundred feet apart, and Marco either thought the best way to cheer me up was to be corny or he was like that all the time. From what I remembered of Jake's whining, I was inclined to believe the latter. Off to my left I could see the ocean and with my hawk eyes I could even see the few recreational boats that were taking advantage of the nice weather. There were fewer thermals near the beach, but I sought out the quiet pockets that requited more flapping, letting the physical exertion take the place of thought.

I remember flying. I remember being in the air, with nothing but the wind underneath my wings and clear sight for miles around. But, that's it. None of the feeling, none of the freedom or exhilaration that accompanied my first leisure flight survived the Ellimist's retelling. I know that I went flying with Marco that day, and I know that I was amazed at the experience of flying for no reason other than I wanted to, but I will never quite remember that feeling.

However, whether it was the irreplaceable feeling of flying or Marco's amazing ability to make an ass of himself without trying, my mood did improve.

We spent the whole morning flying together, stopping a few times to rest or demorph. At lunch time, rather than follow Marco's suggestion of hunting, we went back to his house to eat. I had to endure Marco's teasing as I went around in his clothes, since mine were still on top of the school and I didn't want to spend the rest of the day in my swimsuit.

Contrary to the rest of my experience over the last week or so, I was very relaxed with Marco. Perhaps that's why I fell asleep on his couch; it was the first time in so long that I _could_ sleep easily. Whatever the reason, I sat down after lunch and didn't wake up until Marco shook me a few hours later.

"Julie. Julie, wake up."

I batted his hand away, thinking, in my befuddled state, that he was Andi. "Go away," I muttered into the pillow.

"Julie, you have to get up. It's almost four."

The oddity of that statement did more to wake me up than the meaning. I looked up at him and blinked a few times. "So?"

"When does your mom get home?"

I stared at him for a few more moments before what he was saying sank in. "Oh shit." Franticly I looked around for a clock. 3:47. I had about ten minutes to get home before Dad arrived home with the twins. "Oh shit." I threw off the blanket I didn't remember putting on and stood in the middle of Marco's living room, wondering what to do. "Oh shit." I was still in Marco's clothes, with no shoes. Should I morph and fly home? No, there were too many people out in the middle of the day.

"Calm down. We're only a few blocks away, just make a run for it."

"But your clothes." I plucked nervously at a corner of his t-shirt.

"It's okay." He took me by the shoulders and steered me toward the front door. "Just give them back later."

"Okay." I paused by the door and turned to give him a spontaneous hug. "Thanks, Marco." Before he could say anything about the hug or I could wonder why I did it, I opened the door and bolted through.

I ran barefoot the entire way, worrying a bit belatedly about rusty nails and such. I made it home just before the others and ran upstairs to change into pajamas. They were walking in the front door as I was rolling Marco's clothes into a ball and shoving them into the hamper.

"Julie! Are you home?"

I leaned out my door to yell back. "I'm upstairs, Dad!"

The twins came running up the stairs, jostling each other in their haste to be first.

Alex won. He stood in front of the top of the stairs, blocking the way for Andi, and looked at me. "Hey, why are you in your PJs?"

"Because they're comfy," I answered simply.

Alex just shrugged and let Andi push him out of the way before they both raced down the hall into their room.

I closed the door and fell over on my bed, exhausted from running and worrying and a million other things. I fell asleep again thinking that it had been a close call, but I had gotten away with skipping.

---------

I woke from yet another nightmare. Fortunately, I'd been screaming into my into my pillow so no one came running. I looked at the clock and decided it was getting late and I should probably put in an appearance downstairs. Besides, without the twins the upstairs was far too quiet.

In the kitchen, Mom was cooking dinner while the twins did homework at the table. As I came up behind Alex and looked at his papers, I thought of my backpack still on the school roof and wondered how I'd get it back.

"Hey there, sleepyhead. Nice of you to join us."

I grunted at Mom and stepped away from Alex and Andi. Why did she have to bug me about taking a nap? It's a normal enough thing, even for people who don't stay up all night fighting aliens.

Mom gave me an odd look, but didn't say anything.

"When's dinner?"

"About half an hour."

I grunted again and leaned against the wall of the kitchen with an almost offended air. I watched them and wondered how they could be so calm. So peaceful. So _normal_.

"Hey, Julie. Can you help me?" Andi help up her history book to indicate what she needed help with. "We have to make this timeline thingy on-"

"Maybe later," I cut her off and wandered into the living room, falling onto the couch.

"Julie," Mom called from the kitchen. "Do you have any homework?"

"I did it in study hall." A common lie, but a plausible one. I wondered if she bought it, or if she'd figured out long ago that I never did homework in study hall.

I fell over on the couch with yet another grunt and buried my face in the throw pillow. I wondered why my family was so annoying. Why they had to always pester me and bug me. Why they couldn't just be… But I couldn't quite figure out what I wanted them to be.

The phone rang, but I didn't move to answer it. Besides, Mom was closest.

Mom banged her spoon against the pan a few times before answering, which made me grit my teeth all over again. I wondered if everything my family did had always irked me, or if it was a recent development.

"Oh, hi Jake."

I picked up my head and glanced back at the kitchen, realizing only too late that I had a look of dread on my face. Mom was staring at me; I couldn't pretend the ring had startled me nor could I return to a nonchalant position so I just continued to watch her.

"No, you can't talk to her. She's still grounded." Mom paused, listening. "Al right, I'll tell her you called." She hung up the phone and stood in the doorway to the kitchen to talk to me. "That was Jake. He said there was something on the news he thought you might be interested in."

I shrugged as best I could from my horizontal position. "Okay. I'll ask him about it tomorrow at school."

But I had no intention of waiting until school to find out what was going on. Jake knew I was grounded; he wouldn't have called me unless it was something very important. Something Animorphs. Something about the theater.

As soon as Mom went back in the kitchen I went upstairs to my parents' room where the second TV was. I flipped through all the channels that showed local news until I found what Jake was obviously referring to. The tail end of a segment about the theater. A reporter and a man in a business suit standing in front of the ruined building.

((-progress. This is a setback, of course, but not an insurmountable one. And that's really what this project is all about. We will overcome this obstacle and rise above it. Progress cannot be halted by anything.))


	11. Chapter Eleven

Memories

Chapter Eleven

That night I flew to the roof of the school to get my clothes and book bag, noticing that Marco's were already gone. But Marco could have easily come earlier to get them; he wasn't grounded.

Jake met me at the street corner. I didn't even pause at the sight of him. Life had gotten far too strange to worry about neighbors who pop up out of nowhere.

I didn't ask for an explanation, but he gave me one anyway. "Marco told me you two skipped today, and I saw you fly out your window."

I grimaced. "I was being careful," I whined. Crap. Jake had seen me, which meant anyone could have seen me, which meant I was about to get lectured again.

But Jake just shrugged. "I was waiting for you. Don't worry. No one in this neighborhood stays up past one anyway."

"So what are you doing here?" I asked, shrugging my bag to a more comfortable spot on my shoulder.

"We had a meeting this afternoon."

I rolled my eyes and continued walking toward home. "Without me. Again."

Jake caught up to me with just a few of his longer strides and gave me a long-suffering look. "Don't start, Julie. We have to work around your grounding."

"Hey, that wasn't my fault!"

"Don't shout. And I know it wasn't your fault. You think you're the first of us to get grounded for showing up late to dinner?"

I scowled a bit and tried to pick up my pace, but he kept up with me easily. The guy was a good four or five inched taller than me; I'd have to run to out-pace him. And even then he wouldn't have to work too hard to catch me. I sighed again when it was clear after a few houses that he was just humoring my temper-tantrum. "So what did you guys come up with at this meeting?"

"No much. We've all agreed that we need to stop them and that nothing we do to the building will work. I guess they really want to push this project through. They probably think the risk of another attack is worth the benefits they'd get from it."

"I thought we were going for attention here? Expose them and let paranoia run its course?"

"Yeah, that was the plan, but they managed to twist the attention in their favor."

"No kidding. They just got a ton of publicity." We walked a bit in silence, thinking about that. "So now what?"

Jake sighed and shrugged. "No one knows. But think on it. If you come up with something let me know."

"So that's the plan? Sleep on it and hope things look better in the morning? What about another attack? Too much publicity might raise a few questions."

He shook his head. "If you think you can get within a hundred feet of that building again, be my guest. We lucked out with the second attack; we're not going to get a third."

We turned the corner on our street and I rolled a few thoughts around in my head. "You've been fighting too long," I told him. "You're thinking too much like a soldier. Maybe the plan was a good one and we just gave them the wrong kind of attention."

We reached my house and paused in front of it. "Do you have an idea?"

I shrugged. "Maybe. More like I think I might have an idea, but I can't quite put my finger on it."

He sighed again, looking a little deflated and more than a little tired. Not surprising since it was about one-thirty in the morning. "Well if you pin it down let me know."

We parted ways and I quietly snuck back into my house through the front door which I'd left unlocked. Half-way up the stairs I noticed a dim glow at the corner of my vision when it blinked off. It was the light from under my parents' door. I froze and held my breath, listening for someone. But the house was silent. Probably just my mom going to bed after a long, hard night of reading cheep romance novels. She went through them almost as voraciously as I used to go through Goosebumps books. Thank God I'd grown out of that phase.

I waited a few more moments to make sure she wasn't about to come bursting out the door to catch me, then tippy-toed into my room and went straight to bed, still thinking about my almost-idea.

-------------

I was up before Andi the next morning. A historical first in my family, but not all that surprising since I'd slept poorly, waking every half-hour or so from another nightmare. At a few minutes before six I decided sleep was pointless anyway and sat up on my bed, trying to clear out the cobwebs before Andi came in.

"Hey, you're already up," she said when she looked around my door.

I looked at her, but didn't straighten from my slouched-over position. "I can lay back down and let you drag me out of bed if it'll make you feel better."

She stuck her tongue out at me and left.

The pillow was nice and inviting, but I told myself I'd just have another nightmare and got up instead. I was half-way through brushing my teeth when my mind finally kicked into gear and all the pieces fell into place. I stood and stared at my reflection for a good five minutes, still holding my toothbrush, with toothpaste drool on my face. Not that I was giving much thought to toothpaste drool. I'd done it. I'd pinned down my idea of an idea. It was now a full-fledged idea. I knew how to stop the Yeerks.

I was halfway out the door before I realized I was still holding my toothbrush. I checked myself and went back into the bathroom. There was nothing I could do until school started anyway. Once there I could…

I could what? Tell Jake? I knew what he would do; he'd tell the rest of the group. Put it to a vote. Get input. Normally I'd be all for this, but what I had in mind called for a bit more…finesse. A smaller crew. And someone who didn't think like a soldier or a leader. What I needed was a damn good liar.

-------------

I cornered Marco in the hall at school and told him to meet me at lunch. He gave me an odd look, but didn't say anything. Just nodded and moved on to class.

At lunch we sat together in the corner. I was lucky in that none of the other Animorphs had the same lunch period as us. When Marco got there I didn't waste time with small-talk; I just jumped right in and told him my idea. He listened quietly, without changing expression or touching his food.

"Why didn't you take this to Jake?" he asked when I was done.

I shrugged and twirled my spork in my fingers. "Because he's Jake. He'd do the whole 'great leader' thing and call a meeting and there'd be a vote and everything."

"What's so bad about that?"

I looked at Marco and saw a little grin tug at the corner of his serious expression. "You're testing me?"

"Why don't you want a vote?"

"Because! Because everyone will want in on it. And because Rachel will try to make it more complicated and because Cassie will whine about if it's right or not and because it might not work and they don't need more disappointment and because all we really need is you and me and maybe Erek. Do I need any more 'because's?"

He stabbed a vegetable on his tray but didn't eat it. "No, I guess not." He put down the spork and looked up at me and grinned. "This is a pretty underhanded idea here. Never would have expected it from you."

"Yeah, well, I'm a tricksy little devil."

-------------

It took a little longer than I'd planned to put my idea into action. We had to work around my grounding, which meant Marco and Erek couldn't come over nor I could I go to them. We worked in the library during lunch and school breaks, and Marco took our work to Erek for the finishing touches. Erek was an immeasurable help; without his ability (or affinity) with computers, our ruse would never have looked believable.

Not once during that week did I suggest we bring the others in to help, though I did think of it. We were handling the project ourselves, and every time we did something right, I was reminded of the times over the past few weeks that they'd left me out. I did wonder that Marco never brought up the subject either, but I didn't confront him in it.

Dorky as it sounded, I'd been calling the plan Project Deep Throat in my head. Marco was playing the part of a guilt-ridden insider at the theater going to the media. He'd made a few hesitant calls to a local news station, vaguely promising a story before suddenly hanging up. We'd spent the week compiling fake evidence of a financial fraud and giving to Erek so he could add all the right names and letterheads and other details. Saturday would be the final phone call and an anonymous drop at the station. Most everything was ready; we just had to do it.

Jake came to talk to me on Saturday afternoon. It was the last day of my grounding and Mom was getting a bit lax about enforcing it so she let him up to my room. I stood at the top of the stairs and glared at him as he climbed. Jake didn't come for social visits anymore and he never brought good news.

"So what's up?" I asked once we were both shut in my room.

"Are you and Marco going ahead with tonight?"

I sat in my desk chair and watched him take his usual spot on the edge of the bed. I didn't glare at him, just watched with a shell-shocked look. "Did Marco tell you?"

He nodded. "Did you think he wouldn't?"

I had to admit to myself that I did, but I didn't have to admit it to him. Instead I shrugged. "He didn't tell me did."

I could see he wanted to press the subject, but instead he changed it after a few moments. "Do you think this will work?"

I shrugged and slouched in my chair. "Yeah, I think it will. Scandal is the Salem Witch Trials of this century; as soon as someone's accused they're guilty. If we give them a fake memo or two, the news people will hound them. The more the Ye- these people deny it the more guilty they look."

Jake nodded but didn't look approving or relieved like I'd thought he would. "And in this grand scheme of yours did you ever stop to think that maybe the reporter you went to might be a Controller?"

"They…they're in the news, too?" Shit, I hadn't thought of that.

"They're everywhere. I thought we told you that."

"Yeah, but…" Oh no. Did I miss a vital step? Did I doom the plan? If it was too late and Marco had been talking to a Controller, was our cover as humans blown?

"Did you know Rachel's dad is a reporter?"

I froze, trying to get a hold of my frantic thoughts. I hadn't found the reporter we were using; Marco had. "What's his name?"

"Dan." Not our guy. "He's got a coworker who just moved here a few days ago. Name's Adam. Ring any bells?"

What was he trying to tell me? Adam Lynn was the man Marco had picked out. Adam was connected to Rachel's dad. New to town…

"When did Marco tell you? Did everyone know?"

Jake shook his head. "Just me. Marco told me right away. And he told me why you two decided to keep it secret, but did it ever occur to you that maybe we could help? Or just that we'd want to know?"

"Yeah, Jake, that did occur to me. I do know what it's like to be left out of a plan."

"And you're blaming me for that?"

"Yes, Jake, I am. You drag me into this fucking war you're in and then you drag me along on your fucking missions and ruin my life and my family and everything and just leave me in my house alone and if all that isn't bad enough I can't even be part of this stupid fucking group! What, did you just not know what you were doing? You cut me off from my whole world and then you cut me off from yours!" I slammed my hand on the table and stood up, pacing toward the door and then turning back to him suddenly. "What…what were you thinking? How could you do this to me!"

"Julie, stop it." Jake stood up and grabbed one of my hands, maybe thinking it would calm me down.

Instead I snatched my hand back and shoved him away from me. "No, Jake. Do you have any idea what I've been going through?"

He scowled and started to answer, but I cut him off.

"And don't tell me you do, because you don't! You have no idea! And I don't care what you went through when this mess started, cause you had Marco. Do you know who I had? No one! I've been alone since you and you're friends…since you…" I stopped and went back to my chair to collapse. I put my head in hands and felt the tears I didn't realize I'd been crying. "How could you do this to me?" I sobbed. Jake moved, as if he was about to comfort me, but stopped.

"You chose to join us."

"I chose _nothing_," I whispered fiercely. "It was fight, or live with the knowledge that I'd done nothing. Either way, my life is over now."

"You're not alone, Julie. We're all here with you; we're all fighting just like you. How can you say you're all alone in this when I'm right next door? Maybe if you'd just open up and trust us this wouldn't seem so impossible."

I laughed outright at that. "Oh God, Jake. You should leave the motivational speeches to Cassie. 'Won't seem so impossible?' It's seven **_kids_** against an **_army of aliens_**! You can't get more impossible than that. And trust you? Jake, _you_ won't trust _me_. None of you do." I was hysterical, laughing and crying while trying to keep the noise muffled. I buried my face while Jake stood by, unsure of what to do.

"Get out."

"What?"

I picked my head up between sobs and screeched at him. "GET OUT! GET OUT OF MY ROOM! GET OUT OF MY HOUSE! JUST GET OUT!"

I shoved him out of my way, toward the door, through the door. As soon as he was out I slammed the door in his face and threw myself on the bed, giving in to my hysterics. I screamed and cried and punched the mattress and bit my pillow and thrashed until I was utterly spent. Even after I was exhausted from the fit I stayed face-down on the bed, unwilling to move.

But I had to get up. I had to go to Marco's house and finish the plan. I rolled over slowly and eyed the clock. I was half an hour late. Instead of getting up I hid my face again. Bad enough I'd just had a screaming fight with Jake, the last thing I wanted to do was face Marco and tell him why I was late. He didn't even need me. There was no reason he couldn't make the drop himself. In fact, he'd probably already done it. There was no reason at all for me to move from my self-pity.

Maybe. I'd already messed up once with the reporter thing. What if there was something else? What if Marco was waiting for me? I couldn't give Jake the satisfaction; he'd just use it to shame me into being in the group.

Wiping the tears, I got up and got ready. I wouldn't have to morph for the drop off, so I dressed comfortably in dark jeans and a black hoodie. Then I gathered some miscellaneous papers I'd been working on and put them in my bag, wiped my face one more time, and went out to face the house.

"Where do you think you're going?" Mom stopped me at the top of the stairs with as stern a voice as I've ever heard from her.

"I'm going out," I told her without turning around.

"No, you're not. You're grounded until tomorrow, remember?"

I rolled my eyes and stopped halfway down the stairs to turn to her. "Yeah, so what? This grounding is bull shit anyway."

"Don't take that tone with me, Julie."

"I'll talk to you however I want to." It was completely irrational, and I knew it. I should have been trying to sweet talk her. I should have tried to sneak out somehow. I should have had a ready lie to tell her. Instead I goaded her. Challenged her. "I'm leaving."

She darted down the stairs after me and grabbed my arm. "Where are you trying to go?"

"I just want to go out, Mom. With my friends and away from this house."

"What happened between you and Jake?"

The question was so out of the blue I had to stop and think for a few moments. "Jake?"

"Yes, Jake. I know something happened; I've been watching you two fight all week. What is it? What did he do to you?"

I looked at her like she'd gone crazy. She _had_ gone crazy. "What he… Mom, he didn't do anything to me."

"Stop lying to me. Do you think I'm stupid? I know, Julie. I know what's going on."

We froze, just standing on the stares. I was staring at her in horror, wondering. Did she find out about the Yeerks? Or was she raving about something different? I waited for her to continue; she waited for me to deny…whatever it was.

"I know what you two have been up to. I'm not blind. Just…just…" She stared tearing up. Oh, God, she knew. My mother had found out about the aliens and everything was ruined. "He didn't hurt you, did he? He didn't force you?"

I blinked several times, trying to make sense of it. Okay, so I _had_ just blamed him for the whole mess. And he did get me shot, but…

"What are you talking about?"

"Oh, honey, I should have talked to you about this sooner; I knew how teenagers are. Especially these days. But listen, no matter what he said-"

"Whoa, hold on! What the hell are you talking about?"

Jake? Force me? Teenagers? Invading aliens aren't exactly a normal part of being a teenager, so what was she talking about?

No. I thought I knew. The way my actions must have seemed to Mom. My uneasiness around someone who was once a friend. My nightmares. My illness. The fights. My withdrawal. She couldn't think that. Could she?

"Do you think…You think that I…"

"I just want to make sure you're safe, honey. And listen, whatever he said you don't have to sleep with him."

I jerked my arm away from her, possibly even more horrified than before. I couldn't even talk, just stared at her with my mouth open. Jake? And… I couldn't even think it, the idea was so absurd.

"I just…I just don't want to happen to you what happened to me."

I glared at her, disgusted. "Don't worry, Mom, I'm not dumb enough to make your same mistake."

Right away I could see I'd stepped over the line. _I_ was Mom's mistake, and she loved me.

But rather than apologize, rather than comfort her or try to make amends or anything I should have done, I took advantage of her shock and walked away. I told myself that I didn't care, that she was crazy, that I had more important things to deal with. More important than my mother. More important than the woman who loved me.

"Julie, get back here."

I was almost to the door when she recovered.

"You cannot talk to me like that, and don't you dare think you're going to leave this house tonight. I am still your mother and you are still grounded. Now, you are going to tell me what's wrong between you and Jake so we can fix it."

I laughed in her face, even as I knew it was the wrong thing to do. Wrong for me. Wrong for the secret. But mostly wrong for her. "Fix it?" I screamed. "You think things are that simple? Just be all happy sunshine and talk about your feeling and _fix everything_? You can't _fix_ anything, Mom. You don't even know what's wrong. You never do! You've never known anything about me or my life and you never will!"

"Because you won't tell me!" Now she was shouting, too. Screeching. "You never let me in!"

"You can't! You wouldn't understand!" I knew what she was talking about now. Not just the Animorphs, but my whole life. She didn't help me with the bully when I was small. She never went to parent-teacher conferences when I was lagging in school. She'd never done anything to help me; just looked worried and desperate until I took care of the problem myself. Then she went back to smiling like she didn't have a care in the world.

"What? What wouldn't I understand?"

"Nothing, Mom. There's nothing to understand. Nothing is wrong. Just leave me alone!"

"Stop it!" She was really screeching now, in a voice I was sure the neighbors could hear. "Stop lying to me. Stop shutting me out."

"Why? You wouldn't do anything anyway. That's all you ever do is worry and fret and that never helps anyone."

"I'm your mother! I love you! I'm supposed to worry about you! I'm supposed to protect you!"

"Well you failed!"

She froze again. I noticed for the first time that there were tears on her face. There were tears on mine.

"You failed! You can't protect me, you can't help me, you can't do anything and you can't even act like a real mother! You're just some teenage hussy who can't deal with being grown up and makes her kids suffer for it! So stop acting like you can tell me what to do my life!"

This time she didn't try to stop me. Her keys were on the end table; I grabbed them in a last minute change of plans and barged out the door.

-------------

I drove to Marco's house, not really caring if a policeman stopped me and found I was driving without a license. I knew how to drive, and if I didn't do anything suspicious they wouldn't have a reason to stop me in the first place. I passed him before I got there; he was walking toward the news station in the opposite direction.

"Hey," I called though the window. "Want a ride?" I was trying to sound light and cheerful, and sounding that much worse for having failed.

Marco grinned and got in the car. He didn't say anything about my upset appearance and I wondered if he didn't notice or had some other reason. Then again, Marco noticed everything except the most obvious.

"Got the file?" I asked, unnecessarily. It wasn't likely that he would be going anywhere tonight without it.

He thumped a manila mailing folder, safely wrapped in an overlarge envelope, in his lap. "Got it right here. I was wondering if you were going to show up at all tonight. I was going to call, but I didn't know if you were still grounded or not."

"Well, I am."

"Snuck out?" he asked without a hint of teasing tone. So he did know something was wrong.

"Something like that."

We rode in silence the rest of the way over there. I divided my attention between the road and him, glancing over occasionally as if waiting for him to say something. He looked oddly relaxed, considering the importance of the mission we were on. Then again, we were delivering the mail, not going into an epic battle. This was probably just an ordinary car ride to him.

"Kind of nice."

He'd been silent so long that it took me a moment to realize he was talking to me. "What's nice?"

"Having someone else drive. Normally I'm the diver, but people always scream at me and I end up hitting stuff."

I almost smiled. "Then why do they keep letting you drive?"

He held up his hands and grinned at me, wiggling his fingers. "I'm the only one with hands."

I smiled back, but didn't fall into the invitation for chit-chat and made the rest of the trip in silence. When we did finally make it to the station we both got out of the car and I reached in the back seat for my book bag.

"I've got some more notes I worked up today. Do we want to add them?"

He came around the car to look at the papers I'd pulled out of my bag. Handwritten memos on letterhead paper that Erek had gotten for us. Marco stood behind me and read the top one over my shoulder.

"I still can't believe how good you are copying handwriting like this."

"Well, I've had years of fake doctor notes to practice on."

He reached around me for the papers and I noticed for the first time how close he was to me. And how we were almost the same height. And how dark his eyes were at night. And…

I stepped away a bit and cleared my throat, telling myself that it had been a far too emotional day and that I was starting to imagine things. Marco didn't seem to notice; he was still going through my memos.

"Some of these are repeats."

"What? Oh, those must be the ones I messed up on."

"Do you think we need them? I mean, we've got enough right here." He held up the hand that held the folder.

I shrugged. "Couldn't hurt."

"You never know. We don't want to overdo it."

"Well, either way, decide fast. Someone's going to see us out here and get suspicious."

He handed the whole mess over to me. "You decide. This was your idea."

I scowled at him and took the papers, looking through them again and picking out two. "Just these, then." I added them to the folder, placed it back in its envelope and gave it back to Marco.

"Why me?"

"Because."

He sighed and took the folder but didn't move. "Kind of anti-climactic, isn't it?"

I looked around the empty parking lot. Lights were on near the building, mostly at the front, but our area was completely in shadow. Deserted. I just didn't seem like the scene of a great victory. Not that we even knew if it would be a victory.

"Yeah. I'm almost disappointed. Like, winning should be this great, happy moment. Shouldn't it?"

"Not always. Sometimes it is. And sometimes it's just…a relief."

I tucked my hands in the pocket of my hoodie and considered that for a moment. When I realized Marco was still standing there I nudged him with my elbow. "What are you waiting for? Get with it."

He snapped a salute and then turned, making a big show of sneaking across the empty parking lot. I leaned against the car and watched his exaggerated tippy-toe. I could even imagine him humming theme music to himself. The thought made me smile. When he hid behind a light pole I outright laughed. How did he always know how to cheer me up?

He did, at least, have the common sense to act less conspicuous when he reached the lights. He placed the envelope, addressed to Adam Lynn, in front of the door. If Adam followed the plan, as per Marco's instructions, he'd show up in half an hour expecting to meet his informant and find the envelope instead.

Then, Marco walked calmly out of the light. But once he was well away he started running toward me, pumping one hand in the air for 'victory.' I giggled, then stopped myself. It simply wasn't an appropriate time for giggles.

"Exciting enough for you?" Marco asked when he was close enough.

I smiled, but didn't answer. Instead I threw my arms around his neck and hugged him, as if in jubilant celebration. He picked me up and we spun around a few times and I laughed again. It seemed the first time I'd laughed in days.

When he put me down I leaned in and kissed him. I didn't really think about it, didn't consider it, didn't even realize what I was doing until it was too late. And Marco must have been caught up in the moment as well because he didn't pull back right away.

"Oh…um…I…" I stepped back, away from him and out of the embrace. I was blushing so madly I thought my head might pop and trying to decide if I should apologize or not.

Marco laughed nervously and ran one hand through his hair, a gesture Jake usually did. "Well then…"

And neither of us knew what to say. We stood by the car, idly shifting around and being embarrassed, until I finally said, "I guess we should head back now."

"Um, yeah, probably. But, um, I think I'll fly home."

"Yeah, sure." I didn't question it; his flying meant we could avoid the awkward car ride home. Besides, it a nice night for flying. I waited long enough for him to put his shoes and jacket in the car, then left with one last awkward, embarrassed smile.

On the ride home I turned up the music as loud as it would go, hoping the noise would drown out all thoughts of the day. Facing Mom and Jake and Marco would be bad enough in the morning. Perhaps it was because I was singing along with the radio that I didn't notice the tail.

But after three turns I did notice him. We were the only two cars on the road and he was terrible at following. Just to make sure I turned down a residential street and wound my way through the neighborhood. He followed me all the way back to the main road. Now I was sure he was following me.

And now he knew that he was found out. He came up behind me until he was almost hitting my bumper. I sped up, thinking franticly. I had no idea how to loose a tail or out-race someone. I'd just learned to drive! But I didn't really have a choice. What if he'd seen me and Marco at the station? What if he knew or guessed what was going on? I couldn't let him catch me or follow me home.

I skipped the turn into my own neighborhood and headed for the highway, hoping to loose him among the other cars. But the guy was persistent. He stuck to my tail like glue, nearly running other cars off the road. I tried to speed up, but he stayed with me. We were way over the speed-limit and the few other cars were moving out of our way. An accident would have slowed him down, or brought in other people or the police. Instead we sped out of town nose-to-tail.

I was frantic, looking around and trying to see a way out. I thought about calling Jake, but Mom hadn't exactly given me her cell phone before I stormed out of the house. And what would Jake be able to do?

Could I leave the road? No, there were too many trees and it wouldn't do any good anyway.

I was speeding in a blind panic away from a car that was driven either by a maniac or a Controller with nothing but open highway ahead of me. Then I saw a bend in the road. As we came closer to it I realized that around the bend was a bridge. Not a big one, but a bridge to span one of the many small streams in the area.

I glanced at my speedometer. Over 95 miles an hour. The curve wasn't sharp, but it was just sharp enough. I was going too fast. And he was following too close.

I slammed on the breaks and turned the wheel sharply. I wouldn't stay on course, but maybe I could avoid going over the edge. It might have worked, if my pursuer had done the same. Instead he crashed into the passenger door and pushed us both over the edge.

Someone was screaming. It might have been me. But I wasn't listening. I was just looking up, through the windshield, at the perfect, starry night sky. A perfect night for flying.

And then it all went black.


	12. Chapter Twelve

Memories

Chapter Twelve

When I woke I wasn't alone. The first thing I noticed was the smell. Hospitals have a distinct smell, far too clean to be mistaken for anything else. But even so, I didn't immediately realize where I was. My brain was fuzzy, my sight was blurry, and my body felt…odd. Like it was supposed to hurt, but didn't remember how. I started to sit up when I looked around and took note of my surrounding for the first time.

"She's awake!"

A woman in the corner jumped out of her chair and came to the side of my bed. Her presence was so sudden and so shocking that I jerked away from her.

"Julie, dear, how do you feel?" She grabbed for my hand, but I pulled away and cradled it close to my chest. There were scrapes and bruises all over both hands. Scraped and bruises that I couldn't remember getting.

The woman was staring earnestly at me, waiting for me to answer. _How do you feel?_ I wanted to answer her, she looked so desperate, but I couldn't. I couldn't think. My leg was starting to register pain and my heart was beating wildly in my chest. _How do you feel?_ How should I answer? What did she want from me?

"Nurse!" The woman got up from bed and ran toward the door. "Someone! Someone come in here. She's awake."

And then she was back at my bedside. Something about the woman made me nervous, though I couldn't quite tell what it was. I edged toward the opposite side of the bed, eager to be away from her.

"Julie, honey, I'm so sorry."

Sorry? What was she sorry for? I didn't even know this woman and there she was, pestering me when all I wanted was to be left alone and figure out what was going on. But she dropped to her knees beside my bed and clenched her fists is the blanket and ducked her head.

"I'm so, so sorry."

The woman was crying. The soft, quiet cry of someone who'd been doing it for a long time. Whatever she'd done, she was so ashamed she wouldn't even look at me. Not that I wanted her to look at me.

And yet, some part of me went out to her. I was torn between the desire to hold her hand, to comfort her, and to demand that she get out of the room. She was so close. So close to me. And I didn't even know her. I was quivering at the edge of the narrow bed. My heart was pounding so hard I was sure the whole world could hear it. I just wanted her to leave. To give me some room to breath.

I couldn't breath. She was too close. And still crying. What was I supposed to do? And why was she here?

Why was I there, in a hospital? I looked around, looked at my arms. They were covered in cuts and abrasions, one deep enough to get stitches. There was an IV taped to my left arm and I looked up at the half-drained bag. What had happened to me?

I was saved by the doctor. A middle-aged man in a white coat walked briskly into the room and started looking at the equipment I was attached to. The crying woman stood and wiped her cheeks briskly.

"Well, Miss A-. It's nice to see you up finally."

I stared at him, still tensed and tucked in on myself, with my fear evident on my face. The doctor stopped looking at the equipment and looked at me instead.

"Do you know where you are?"

"In…in a hospital?" I ventured.

"Do you know what happened to you?"

I shook my head. I couldn't remember anything that had happened before.

The doctor frowned and crossed his arms. "Julie, can you tell me the last thing you remember?"

I tried. I thought back and tried to remember what had landed me in a hospital. But I couldn't. So I tried to remember what I'd last done. But I couldn't. And then the panic set in. My mind wasn't just fuzzy. I was grasping for a memory, any memory, no matter how distant or irrelevant, any memory at all to give him. But I couldn't. I couldn't remember anything. I was lost. Alone. I had nothing, absolutely nothing to tie me to this world. I had nothing of _me_. I didn't exist!

I thought my heart was pounding before, but I was wrong. I grew lightheaded and my vision swam. I couldn't tell if it was the panic or the tears that were gathering behind my eyes. My chest was so tight I started gasping for breath, which only caused pain that made the panic worse.

I was nothing. I had no memories. No name. No me. _Nothing._

I covered my face with my hands and gave in to the tears.

Nothing.

-------------

It was hours before I was calm enough to hear what had happened to me. My name was Julianne. The woman crying at my bedside was my mother. The man and two children who came in a few hours later were the rest of my family. I'd been found the morning before in the wreckage of a car accident. Two vehicles were found at the bottom of a small depression near a creek. The other driver was dead, and I suffered head trauma, a fractured leg, cracked ribs, and more cuts and minor injuries than I cared to keep track of. And amnesia.

I was in denial at first. It was ridiculous. Who outside of soap stars ever got amnesia? Certainly not normal people. But the doctor assured me that it wasn't entirely uncommon for head trauma patients and that my memory should return within a few days. When he told me this I wasn't watching him. I was staring at the opposite wall, listening with only half my attention.

I was girl who had been in a car crash. My entire existence revolved around this one incident. The only thing I knew for sure about myself. Everything else about me I knew from other people. Strangers. How could I believe from them what I couldn't remember for myself? I didn't even know them. Hell, I didn't know my own name.

After the doctor finished his explanation he asked if I wanted to see my family again. I told him no, that I was tired and just wanted to sleep. In truth, I didn't want to see anyone. I just wanted to be alone and wallow in the misery of my loneliness. Not the best thing in the world to do, but I simply didn't have the strength to face the world when I didn't even have a personality to hide behind. How would I act? Was I normally talkative? Shy? Was I even a nice person? I had no idea.

The doctor seemed to understand. He left me alone in my room after giving me another dose of pain-killer for my leg and ribs. I wasn't really tired, but with the drugs soon fell asleep anyway. What reason did I have to stay awake?

-------------

I woke in the middle of the night. My first thought was of my leg, that maybe the injury had woken up. I was reaching for the buzzer to call the nurse when I realized that I wasn't alone in the room.

In the far corner, sitting in the same chair used by my mother earlier that day. I propped myself up on one elbow and squinted to look at him.

"Who are you?"

_I am the Elimist._

The noise came from nowhere and everywhere at once. I jerked and looked around, trying to find the source, but the sudden movement just made my chest hurt. But after a few seconds the pain disappeared. All of it. Not just the pain in my ribs, but the lingering pain in my leg and the soreness in my limbs and head as well. I felt light. As if the only thing keeping me from floating away was the blanket draped over me.

I glanced at the stranger in the chair. Should I know him?

_Do not be afraid. You don't know me, but I know you._

"How?"

_I've been watching you._

I squinted again, trying to get a better look at the guy. He wasn't in any deep shadow, but I still couldn't make out any features other than a stooped posture and a long white beard. "Why? What do you want from me?"

_I want nothing from you. I have come to apologize, for I fear my actions have brought you to this place._

My mind was scrambling. His actions? Was it his fault I crashed? Oh, god, was he the ghost of the other driver? I didn't really believe in ghosts, I think, but the eerie voice and ghostly figure had me ready to believe anything.

_I am not a ghost,_ he said, responding to my unspoken fears. Then he hesitated. I had the feeling he was unsure of what to do next, and that he was not used to being so lost. _Would you like to know yourself?_

"What are you talking about?"

_You are bereft at the loss of your memory. You think that without it you are nothing, but this is not true. Your thread, your soul, is still intact and as much true to you as it ever was._

"How can that be? How can I be anything when I can't even remember anything? I can't remember the faces of my own family. The people who are supposed to be dearest to me are complete strangers. I'm a stranger."

_There are things in your past that you will not wish to remember. I am here to apologize, and to offer you a choice. I can take your pain away, both the pain in your body and the pain in your heart, or I can give you your memories._

I stared at this being in amazement. "You can do that? How?"

_That is not important._

It was a trick. Had to be. Some crazy, drug-induced dream. And yet, if it were real… Besides, if it were a dream how much could it hurt to play along?

"If…if I pick the first one, will my memory ever come back?"

_Perhaps._ _In time. Probably not._

I thought about his offer for a long time. The physical pain wasn't unbearable and I knew it would pass in time. But the 'pain in my heart'? That had been tearing at me since the moment I realized I couldn't remember myself. Would that ever go away? And yet, he seemed so hesitant to give me my memories back. What had I done that was so horrible?

My choices were to get back my memory, or stop caring that I'd lost it. Live with a burden or without myself.

"I want to know. I don't care what I've done; I just want to know who I am."

The Elimist seemed sad, but he bowed his head. And then he showed me everything.

Everything.

-------------

The Elimist didn't tell me my life like a story. He didn't spell it out for me like a book that I could commit as a new memory. He simply…put everything back. It wasn't as if my mind had been restored, but more like a new one, or possibly just a backup, had been dumped into my brain. I was overcome with memories and thoughts. Lost in words and visions and sounds. Lost to everything but my own mind as I tried to process it. I could have been like that for hours, for days, or maybe only a few seconds. I heard. I saw. I remembered. But I never felt. Not the pleasure or the pain or sadness of my past. I only saw it.

But even seeing was too much. I saw the battles. I saw the carnage. I saw my sister's face as I yelled at her. I saw my mother's when I told her she'd failed as my parent. I saw Jake and Rachel and Cassie and Tobias and Ax. And I saw Marco. But mostly I saw my mother. I saw her pain from that night and the echo of it in the face of a stranger at my bedside. And I saw my own face, and everything that had happened to me.

I lay on my back in the hospital bed, wanting to curl into a miserable ball but afraid of what my ribs might do. I no longer felt light. I felt incredibly heavy and hollow all at once. I wanted to curl in, to collapse into my self and disappear.

"Why?" I croaked, my throat tight and sore from suppressed sobs. "Why are you here?"

_Because you shouldn't be,_ he answered. _This war should not have involved you. These six children, these Animorphs, will fight the Yeerks. And whether they win or loose has yet to be seen, but they will fight and decide more than their own fate. But you, my dear, were never supposed to be a part of it._

"You…you put them in this war? You use them? Like chess pieces?"

He didn't answer me. Perhaps the answer was too obvious to voice. Perhaps he just didn't want to say out loud.

"So why me? Why did this happen to me?"

_I cannot say._

"Can't or won't?"

_Cannot._ _There are forces at work in the universe greater than Cryak and myself. Some may call it God, some fate, and some coincidence. Whatever you chose to call it, it had a role for you to play. Something will come of what you've done; suffering is never done in vain._

"What? What good can possibly come of this?"

_I don't know. The threads of our actions are enormously complex. Even I cannot see every outcome of our actions, only the most immediate ones._

"But…there is a point to all this. What I did, that mattered?"

_Everything matters. No suffering is ever in vain, even if the gain is not always obvious._

He started to fade and I felt myself grow sleepy against my will.

"Wait," I called. I had one more question. It was silly, but I had to ask. "What do you call it? The…the force that's bigger than you?"

_Choice._

-------------

I knew everything. In the morning I greeted my siblings by name and answered a barrage of questions about my life and childhood. Mom was so happy she broke down in tears again and hugged me until I thought the pain in my ribs would kill me. But she was my mom and I loved her so I didn't try to push her off.

I couldn't answer all of their questions. I couldn't tell them about the Animorphs, about what I'd done that night, or about several nights prior to that. I told them my memory was still sketchy and fudged a few other questions as well. Besides, I didn't want my recovery to seem too miraculous and I was sure Grandma wouldn't mind if I told them I didn't remember her name.

We constructed a statement to give the police from Mom's prodding and my lies. It was actually pretty simple. After the fight with Mom, which I professed not to remember, I went driving. I took the car mostly to get back at Mom, and if it got a bit dinged up so much the better. On the highway a crazy drunk started to follow me and I ran, convinced he was the police and that my mother had called them. The rest was more or less the truth. Though the other driver hadn't been drunk at the time of his death, he friends did testify that he'd been acting bizarrely over the past few days and it was widely believed that he was insane. Who in their right mind eats that much oatmeal anyway? No charges were filed and I was free to recover in relative peace.

Mom stayed with in the room as often as possible. Being a nurse, she wasn't restricted to normal visiting hours and took over most of my care herself. She seemed more…serious. Part of me thought it was just because of the situation. Another part of my hoped she was different. Maybe more…motherly. Even if it did make sneaking out of the house more difficult.

Jake came to visit me several times while in the hospital, but Mom turned him away at the door each time. Apparently she still believed he'd been…well, she was still mistaken about our relationship. I didn't mind terribly because I was afraid of telling him what I knew I'd have to.

He finally snuck in my second night. I was due to go home in the morning and Mom had left to get some sleep. I couldn't get comfortable with my cast, so I was awake when he slipped into the room. It was clear from the spandex how he'd gotten past the nurses.

"Julie? Are you awake?"

"Yeah, Jake. Come over here. Sit."

I was long past being mad at him. I guess falling on my head changed me a bit. Or maybe I was just inclined to forgive him, considering what I was about to do to him.

I didn't give him a chance to speak, though it was clear he wanted to. "Why didn't you come visit me during the day? And why are you wearing bike shorts?"

He blinked at me, confused. "Um…"

"Look, I'm glad you came. There's something I wanted to talk to you about. I've got these holes in my memory, see. They start about two weeks ago and there's whole nights that I've just got no idea what I did."

He understood. He stared to look grim and just a little bit relieved. Infuriating. But I let it go. I pressed on.

"See, the funny thing is, I don't think I want to know what happened in those holes. I think maybe I want to just forget whatever it was and go on with my life."

"Are you sure? What if it was something important?"

"Oh, I'm sure it was something important. That's why I can't let myself remember it. I can't handle it, Jake, whatever it is. It's a big, huge, important secret but it's bigger than I am. I'd just mess everything up. And whatever it is, it's too important to let it get messed up. And besides, I'm sure it's in good hands already. So, I think I just won't try too hard to remember what this secret is."

He nodded. "I see."

"By the way, Mom thinks you're a sex fiend."

Jake almost fell off his chair. I bit back a laugh, not wanting to alert the nurses but almost proud of myself. I'd finally startled Jake, the ever calm, brave, Fearless Leader.

When he recovered, I could tell he was trying to keep from laughing as much as I was. "Well, that explains a lot."

I stopped laughing and gave him a meaningful look. "You'll probably want to stay away for a while. You know, until she stops trying to kill you."

"I'll keep that in mind." He got up to leave, then looked back at me. "Are you sure about this?"

"If I ever change my mind, I do know where you live. But really, Jake, it's better if I just go my own way. I promise I won't tell anyone but I would have doomed everything and we both know it. Some people just aren't meant to change the world."

"There's more than one way to do that, you know."

And then he shrank out of sight beyond the foot of my bed. Morphed into something small and crawled out under the door. I really hoped it wasn't a cockroach.

-------------

I had one more visitor that night, but this one I didn't talk to. Marco came in several hours later, slipping under the door just as Jake did. I woke at the sound of his demorphing, a process that can never be completely quiet. That, and my pain medication was wearing off. But as soon as I realized who my visitor was, I feigned sleep again.

He came to my side and sat in the chair. I almost expected him to wake me, or at least talk to me like people talked to comatose patients. But he just sat there and looked at me. I tried to think of what to say. Maybe I could suddenly wake up and…and…and what? What did I think could happen between Marco and me? What did I want to happen? He was saving the world and me? I was just a failure who couldn't cut it. I was a normal teen with a bad driving record and a heap of trouble. I was nothing compared to him. And even if I wasn't…no, there was no chance at all. Besides, I didn't even like the guy all that much.

Did I?

Before I could decide, Marco stood up. He took my hand in one of his and bushed my hair back from my face with his other. I hardly dared to breath. He leaned in closer, I could feel his body heat, I thought for one agonizing moment that he might kiss me, but then he drew away. He squeezed my hand lightly, let go, and left the room the same way he came in.

If he'd bothered to look back as he left he would have seen me watching him. He would have seen me crying. I wasn't crying because he was leaving me. I didn't love him or anything like that. I wasn't even entirely sure I really liked him. I was crying because I'd never know. Because he and I would never have a chance. Because, even if maybe it wouldn't have worked, maybe it would have. Because the war had taken one more casualty.

But he never did look back.


End file.
